When The Darkness Surrounds Us
by Formosa Non Katalaveno
Summary: Rodney is missing. He might have been kidnapped. No, he has been. They communicate with him, but he could die, either of an explosion or from his injuries, at any time. And, he's found a strange device in the Puddle Jumper he's stuck in. Wonderful.
1. When You Wake Up In A Puddle Jumper

**A/N-Hey everyone! So, due to auStraliS23 telling me that the time line is off, which now that it has been pointed out I can clearly see, I've changed a few things in the story, so I urge all who are waiting for the next chapter to read this one again first. But, just in case you don't understand a few things, I'll explain the time line and whats going on. **

**I've changed it to where Woolsey is in control of Atlantis, but Col. Caldwell has come on the Deadulus, as the Deadulus often visits, and has brought Col. Carter and Kavanagh with him, both for separate reasons, Col. Carter for a mission on a planet without a Stargate that she volunteered to lead, and Kavanagh for things on the Deadulus. I've watched all the Stargate Atlantis episodes at least 2 or 3 times, but I've just started watching them again after a year and I'm still at the beginning, so i completely forgot that Dr. Grodin dies, so, just for this story, we're going to pretend that he's still alive. I'm really sorry for the confusion, hopefully this clears it up a bit!**

**Disclaimer- I don't own Stargate: Atlantis, MGM, or any of these characters, so please don't get mad or sue me or any other strange legal stuff that would make me incredibly unhappy!**

Something wasn't right-that much he could figure out by the fact that there were no lights on in the Jumper, except for the radically blinking lights on one of the crystal boards, and that he couldn't remember how he had gotten on the floor. Actually, he couldn't remember why he was even in the Puddle Jumper. The last thing he remembered was him and Jennifer getting ready to go to the weekly movie, which was in the early afternoon that time. They had just walked out of the room, when he remembered that he had forgotten his ear radio and he had gone back to get it, telling her to go on and that he would meet her in a few minutes, and then…nothing. He groaned as he sat up. His back, both of his sides, right shoulder, head, left wrist, and left lower leg hurt really badly. He tried to stand up by grabbing on to the pilot's chair. He got about half way up when he put weight on his left leg, and fell down because of the pain. He tried to take slow, steadying breaths. He tried to stay calm. But he wasn't usually calm, and the fact that he couldn't remember what had happened made him incredibly anxious, his over-imaginative brain starting to spout out stories, hypotheses, and ideas at a growing rate of ridiculousness.

I wonder where John is. The thought came out randomly, but it made him stop for a moment. For the first time since he had woken up, he really tried to take in his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was that the Jumper was in bad shape. No, it was in worse than bad shape, it was in horrible shape. The front of the Jumper, where the pilot seat, co-pilot seat, and the two independent seats behind them were, had several blown consuls, the co-pilot seat and the one behind it were both missing their upper half's, there were black spots all over the place, and he couldn't see out the main view-point. He looked toward the back to find that the door, also covered in black spots that looked a lot like Ronan's blaster's shots, was closed. He sighed and tried to get up again, this time succeeding in sitting in the seat behind the pilot's. He gasped loudly as the pain in his right side grew considerably. He looked down to see what was wrong and immediately wished he hadn't. There was blood seeping out of a wound that was obviously a knife wound. He grimaced again, but didn't make a sound since there was no one there to complain to or to see him in a weakened state. There were only three reasons he ever complained about a wound. One: To make people understand just how horrible (no matter if it was exaggerated) it was. Two: To distract people from any pain he might be in. Three: To distract himself from the pain. Although, what only certain people had ever noticed was that he only complained on the things that weren't immediately life-threatening. This wound, he could tell, would eventually be a real problem. He would probably complain if there were people around, but would stop when it started to hurt too much.

He slowly staggered forward and cried out in pain. Oh forget it, he thought, I'm going to complain anyway.

"Well, look at that. Can't even stand because of the pain. And look at that-no one's here to even notice. Just going to have to get myself out of this alone. Again. Hope I'm not underwater," He shuddered at the thought, "Where is everyone, anyway?"

He kept muttering to himself as he walked up to the consul beside the doors and pulled out the protective covering. He looked at the crystals. They looked just fine to him. There weren't any visible burn-outs, no signs of being shocked in any sense, no reason as to why they shouldn't work. But he knew better than to just look and decide. He wasn't the head of the science department in the ancient's lost city, Atlantis, or the self-proclaimed, proved, smartest man in two galaxies, for no reason. He pulled out a few of the crystals from different areas and looked at them closely. He really wished he had his handheld computer terminal with him. He looked around the room, just in case. He couldn't see it anywhere. He turned back the crystals and began to examine them one by one.

A while later, he couldn't tell exactly how long, he had examined almost all of the crystals, when he found something that greatly disturbed him. The point of the crystal he was holding was slightly burned, but only slightly. There were only two ways that could have happened. Either someone took it out and electrified or shot the very point of it, or someone shocked the entire crystal board on the other side of the doors. Since he thought that the first one was highly unlikely, his logical mind immediately flew to the other. Someone had shocked the other side, and the shock, most likely electrical or perhaps made by some sort of a blast weapon, had traveled through the system. Some of it had been powerful enough to hit the other side, while the rest just stayed inside the other door-controlling crystal board. That could only mean one thing.

He was stuck.

John Sheppard sat down in one of the conference room seats wearily. They had spent the last ten hours searching for Rodney McKay, the head scientist in Atlantis, and also a member of John's team. It had taken them five hours to realize that he was missing. After the movie, Jennifer had been worried that he had never showed up, but the others just thought that he had found something important to do and had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. Jennifer had looked disappointed, but had been quickly distracted by a medical emergency in one of the science labs. A consul had blown up, and Groden had gotten some pretty bad burns. As everyone went off to do their usual things, Rodney had been quite forgotten. However, after he didn't come to the conference room for their scheduled meeting with Richard Woolsey, Samantha Carter, and Col. Caldwell, they had radioed him. After getting no response, they had gone to his quarters, he wasn't in there, he wasn't in any of the science labs, he wasn't in the infirmary, gate room, or any corridors that they had looked in. They had mounted a minor search after that, and then a full out search. About two and a half hours later, someone realized that there was a Jumper missing. The gate hadn't been activated, so they got the Dedaulus, which had been in orbit around the planted for the last three days, to check the surrounding area, while John and a few others with the ATA gene went out in other Jumpers to search the mainland and the rest of the planet. The search turned out fruitless, and then they really got worried. They had kept searching everyone, under water being one of the main places they looked, since Rodney had been trapped under water before, but even after all that time, they had still come up with nothing.

Richard Woolsey had called a meeting of SGA1, Col. Carter, Col. Steven Caldwell, Dr. Radek Zelenka, Major Lorne, Dr. Jennifer Keller, Dr. Carson Becket, who was in this week, and Dr. Kavanagh. Col.'s Caldwell and Carter and Dr. Kavanagh had come to Atlantis on the Deadulus three days before, after Carter had gone on a mission on a planet without a Stargate in the outskirts of the Milky Way after the Deadulus, on a previous trip, had detected high readings of Naquada. Both Colonels had volunteered readily to help look for Rodney, and Kavanagh had grudgingly agreed after being stared down by Carter and Ronan. Once everyone had gathered in there, Ronan in excessive annoyance because he believed that they would be better off searching for Rodney, the meeting started.

"Okay, everyone, what do we know so far?" Woolsey started off the meeting.

"Nothing much. We've been searching for ten hours and all we've been able to determine is that one of the Jumpers is missing, Rodney isn't, as far as we know, in Atlantis, on the mainland, anywhere on Lantea, or in the surrounding space." John said his voice calm despite his worry.

"We have run several scans of the surrounding area, both under water and above, but we have found nothing." Dr. Zelenka's accent came out heavier than usual as he spoke due to his greatly enhancing worry and fear.

"How far could he have gotten in the Jumper in five hours?" Teyla asked, her brow furrowed in concern. Dr. Zelenka considered this for a few moments before answering,

"The Jumper he is in is undergoing repairs, and is therefore not up to its top functionality, so he could not have gotten very far, and definitely not farther than the Dedaulus searched."

Everyone looked worried at this proclamation. It was truly puzzling. Where in the world, no, _**universe**,_ was Dr. McKay? Was he hurt? Had he gone voluntarily? They doubted that. How had someone gotten into Atlantis to force him to leave? Was he…? None of them wanted to finish that unspoken worry that could very well be true.

"Is there any way to find him?" Carter asks, her voice showing only a small amount of her desperation. Everyone turned their heads to the two scientists, hoping that they would have an idea, although they were looking more toward Zelenka than to Kavanagh.

"There may be something we can do. I have been thinking about it, and there is a possibility that whoever took McKay was able to hide the ship from scanners…" Zelenka was cut off before he could continue what he was saying.

"I highly doubt any one would be able to hide it against every scan we've sent. I mean, there are very few people on this base who could perform it, much less in the galaxy." Kavanagh said, rolling his eyes. Zelenka looked annoyed; it was obvious they had had this argument before.

"But it has been done; therefore, there is a chance that they could have done it. Just because you can't do it Kavanagh does not mean that someone else couldn't either." Zelenka bit back before launching into a few quiet insults in his native language.

Kavanagh did not look happy at that statement, but before he could continue with the argument, Woolsey cut in.

"Gentlemen. please!" The two both stopped short and looked at him. "Thank-you. Now, Dr. Zelenka, please continue." Kavanagh looked like he wanted to say something, but a glare aimed at him by everyone, Ronan especially, stopped him.

"Yes, of course. If this person or persons were able to kidnap Rodney from right under our noses," Everyone winced at that Dr. Woolsey and Sheppard especially, "then they must know some of our technology, and that of the ancients, so they could very probably fix the scanners. So, I think that with Hermiod's help, we could reconfigure the scanners, connect them with that of the Dedaulus' and make it to where we could possibly find the Jumper. It's a long shot, I know that, but it is all that we have at the moment." Woolsey nodded at this, thinking it over, before he looked up and locked eyes one at a time with Col. Caldwell and then Col. Carter. The two nodded at him, and he nodded at the others.

"Look, I know you all want to think that McKay is still alive and well, but we have to face fact: he might very well be dead, and the Jumper blown to pieces or something, and then all this hard work would be a huge waste of both time and recourses." Kavanagh said, causing everyone to stop where they were, most either still sitting or just rising from their seats. Those who were starting to get up dropped back down with a loud "plunk!" They all looked at him like they thought he was either incredibly crazy for suggesting such a thing, or incredibly heartless, depending on the person. Jennifer looked just about ready to cry at the thought.

"I'm sure Rodney is just fine. He probably just can't contact us, or the person who took him won't let him." She said confidently, her voice only wavering at the beginning. Kavanagh rolled his eyes at her.

"Yes, of course you'd say that. Everyone knows you two are involved. You're letting your emotions get the best of you, instead of being reasonable." Jennifer looked away at his words, her eyes brimming slightly with tears, while everyone else gaped at Kavanagh, Caldwell included.

"I am being reasonable." Keller started, Kavanagh snorted, "I am. Why would the person who did this go through so much trouble of getting in here undetected and then kidnapping Rodney and stealing a Jumper if they didn't plan on keeping him alive? If they wanted to kill him, they could have easily done it here in Atlantis in his lab, and no one would have found him until two or so hours later, possibly even more. So really, it is logical to assume that they want him alive." She spoke quietly at first, but her voice grew in volume, confidence, and strength as she went on. He looked slightly taken aback at her words, but recovered himself quickly enough. He opened his mouth to say more, but was once again cut off by Dr. Woolsey

"I agree with Dr. Keller. He is most likely still alive. We just need to find him. Dr. Zelenka, I'm giving you full control over this, all the scientist will listen to you, understood, Dr. Kavanagh?" Kavanagh said nothing, "Thank-you. I'm sure Hermiod will gladly help. I've heard he's actually grown quite fond of Rodney's visits." He couldn't help but smile slightly, s smile that looked part grimace. Rodney and Hermiod would often play a few games of Chess when the Dedaulus came over. Caldwell nodded, a light smile gracing his feature. "Okay. Umm, everyone else, we can only continue searching. Col. Sheppard, Teyla, Ronan, go take a nap." The three aforementioned people all started to protest, Ronan more in his body language than anything, Teyla looking worried, and Sheppard looking like he might just resign if he ordered him to. "Listen, you'll all be able to search better once the scanners have been reconfigured if you've been rested." They didn't seem to see the same logic he did.

"No." Was all that Ronan said.

"Look, I get that it would be best for us, but we'll just be laying awake, worrying about Rodney if you send us to a quiet room with nothing there to distract us. It could prove fatal." Sheppard said, his eyes gleaming with unsaid determination. Teyla nodded and put a reassuring had on Ronan's shoulder, trying to calm the large Satedan down.

Woolsey sighed and nodded, knowing that arguing would be a lost cause. Carter smiled slightly. She had a quick flash back of all the times she had stayed up for days, working hard, whenever Jack, Daniel, Teal'c, Cameron, Valla, or Jonas had been hurt, lost, or in danger. Concern, worry, and the un-explainable need to do something was the result of a real, true team, the type of team made of team members willing to do anything for one another, the type of team made of team members who became more than team members after a little while. That was what her old team had been like, and that was what SGA1 was like. She understood, accepted, and admired that. Woolsey had also noticed the friendship that the team seemed to share, and he respected it, knowing that it was sometimes the only thing keeping anyone together, way out there in the Pegasus Galaxy.

"Alright." Was all he was able to get out before John, Teyla, and Ronan were out the door, quickly followed by Radek, Carson, Jennifer, Caldwell, Col. Carter, and, slower and less enthusiastically, Kavanagh, who turned and offered her a last, disapproving glance before heading out.

Woolsey walked out after them, passing Carter, who was standing at the door.

Samantha sighed sighed for what must have been the hundredth time that day, straightened up, pushed back a few free locks of hair, and walked out into the gate room, ready to resume the search of Atlantis' top scientist, her old colleague, and friend.

Rodney was getting tired, light-headed, hungry, and desperate. He had tried everything he could think of, but nothing was working. The shields were acting up. Whatever had happened in the Jumper had obviously hit the crystals that controlled the Jumper's shields, and now they were going haywire. They were staying on, which Rodney considered a good thing, kind of, but they were at an incredibly strange frequency giving off a type of EM field that they never had before. The scanners and communications were still the same as before, and they were broken, so they couldn't compensate for the change. He had tried to reconfigure the scanners in every way he could think of to see where he was, but to no avail. All they told him was that he was on a flat surface. So basically, they told him nothing at all. Then, he had tried to fix the shields-also to no avail. He was getting tired and annoyed. His leg, right side, wrist, and head were getting worse by the minute.

He had checked the knife wound and found that it went in right above his pelvic bone and under his lowest rib. He was pretty sure it had hit his large intestine and pancreas. He was bleeding severely. He had found the medical kit and had put the largest bandage he had found on the wound and then rapped the gauze tightly around it, after putting some antiseptic on the wound. It had stung like crazy, but he had gritted his teeth, complained loudly, and then gotten on with it.

Almost immediately after finding out he was stuck he had found that his forehead and the left side of his head was bleeding, so he had taped some bandages onto both places after stopping the bleeding as best as he could. There wasn't much he could do for his wrist or his leg except not use either as much as possible; which really wasn't much at all. He needed his left hand to help his right hand work, and he needed his left leg to move. He had quickly realized that he had broken his Fibula and probably sprained his ankle, so he had to hop if he wanted to move at all. He was pretty sure his wrist was only sprained, although a bone or two might have been cracked; he wasn't really sure.

He sighed for what must have been the hundredth time since he woke up, and leaned back into the seat behind the pilot's, where he had been working on a consul. He was incredibly tired, but he was trying his best to stay awake and aware. The Emergency Medical Kit had had two emergency water-bottles and he was already done with half of the first one. He had realized that he needed to drink sparingly, but he had been so thirsty and dehydrated.

He sat thinking for a while, just trying hard to breathe in and out and to calm himself. His thoughts wandered to his team.

They had probably found out that he was missing by now. His clock had said that it had been about fifteen hours since he had been knocked out after he had woken up, and now it had been sixteen hours. Yes, they had definitely noticed. Either Jennifer had gotten angry or worried and had gone to look for him, or something had needed fixing. At the thought of Jennifer his stomach clinched uncomfortably. Would he ever get to see her again? Or John? Or Teyla? Or Ronan? Or anyone?

_Stop that!_ He commanded himself. _You don't need to be thinking like that. You need to get out of here, not worry about anything else. Moaning and whining won't make seeing them again come any sooner, so you might as well get up and start working. _

But he didn't. His mind just kept wandering. He thought back to a conversation he had had earlier with the team, Jennifer, and Carson.

"_MCKAY!" Sheppard's voice broke through Rodney's thoughts, making him jump and almost fall out of his chair. He looked up at the coming group of five, annoyed. But his scowl immediately disappeared as he realized that he had forgotten that he had had a lunch gate with them. Jennifer looked mad and disappointed, John looked annoyed and slightly angry, although amused at the same time, Teyla looked like she was having a hard time trying not to laugh, Ronan looked emotionless, although Rodney thought he could see a slight smile playing on the Satedan's lips, Carson looked like he was trying to decide whether to be disappointed, annoyed, or amused. Rodney had been trying really hard lately to remember to be on time to everything, and to his credit, he had been doing really well, which was probably why they weren't all that annoyed or angry. _

"_Look, I'm really sorry; I just found this amazing Ancient piece of technology!" Rodney's grin widened as he saw that Carson and John actually looked slightly interested. Rodney didn't say something that happily if it wasn't really good. _

"_Rodney"- Jennifer started, but Rodney turned to her with a hopeful look, making her stop. She looked at the others hopelessly. Rodney was actually using puppy-dog eyes that seemed to actually work on him. Jennifer sighed, and Rodney took this as a sign that he could continue. _

"_It's some type of a communication/weapon thing. Basically, what I think it does is it sets of a low-level EM field that renders all communication devices that had been programmed into it inert, while leaving specific ones intact." John looked impress, thinking what an advantage it would be to have. "Unfortunately, I can't seem to make it work." John deflated slightly, but still looked excited, confident that Rodney-fix-it-all would be able to fix it. As though reading his mind, Rodney shook his head. _

"_I can only fix it half-way, which wouldn't really work. All that the enemy would have to do is figure out what's causing the disturbance and then they could reconfigure their communications and they would be all set." John, Teyla, and Ronan, who all understood how valuable such a device would be, looked down dejectedly, and Jennifer took this as her cue to step in. _

"_I'm sorry it doesn't work, really, but now you can come have lunch with us, Rodney!" Jennifer looked happy at the thought, and turned on Rodney by using the same puppy-dog eyes he had used on her. He gave the devise one last look before turning around, sighing, and getting up. John, Teyla, Ronan, and Carson all smiled at this._

"_Smitten." John "coughed". Rodney glared at his friend before shooting a response back, which started an argument that lasted until they reached the Commissary and Jennifer and Carson verbally made them stop, while Ronan just glared. _

Rodney smiled at the memory, thinking about the bickering that he and John often started with each other. He dully wondered if he would ever get to bicker with his friend again. He shook his head violently, causing his head to hurt. _It hasn't come even close to that, Rodney. When have you been the type to give up, huh? _He asked himself.

He put his head in his hands, trying to calm the nausea that shaking his head had started. Suddenly, his head shot up, and idea forming in his head. His words from that earlier evening came back to him again. _They could reconfigure their communications and they would be all set. _

_YES! _He thought to himself as he jumped up, remembering to put his weight on his right leg and hopping up to the pilot's seat. He sat down heavily and began working, knowing a system that he could use that Zelenka would recognize.

Woolsey went racing up the steps to the Gate Control, SGA1, Caldwell, Carter, and Dr.'s Keller and Becket racing up right behind her. Dr. Zelenka had radioed him and the others behind him, saying that he had something very important he needed them to see, and that it was about Rodney.

As they raced up, Dr. Grodin beckoned them over to where he and Zelenka were standing over a large Atlantian consul with two computers resting on it.

"What's happening, Dr. Zelenka?" Jennifer asked, worry etched into her words.

"We are receiving a very strange signal, and we are not sure where it is coming from." He replied distractedly, his eyes on his computer.

"And what does that have to do with McKay?" Sheppard's voice, gruff because of worry, came from behind Carter.

"Because, I believe it might be from Dr. McKay." He said. He looked like he was going to say more, most likely an explanation, but he was cut off.

"I highly doubt it." It was Dr. Kavanagh who spoke. "I know you want to believe it is, but I really don't think that's the case." Both Dr. Zelenka and Grodin sighed and rolled their eyes, clearly annoyed with their fellow scientist. Carter glared at the doctor, and motioned for the other two scientists to continue.

"Like I was saying, I believe it is Dr. McKay, because the signal is sending off strange burst of energy at seemingly random sequences, with loud bleeping noises." Zelenka continued, and then looked at them as though he expected them to know where he was going with this. Blank faces stared back at him, quickly growing annoyed. Dr. Zelenka hurried on with his explanation.

"Dr. McKay and I have been experimenting with the Atlantian form of Morse Code. We have been sending each other random messages. Last week, we got over the longest message yet. The first page of the report sent in by SGA3, of that planet on MTH-466. The signals coming in from this consists of the exact same things. Specifically the third line of the second paragraph. You know, the one about how they sent in a message to here saying that they were stuck and hurt?"

Woolsey and Sheppard nodded, feeling hope build up inside of themselves despite their attempts to stay emotionless. They were hoping beyond hope that it really was McKay.

"I think that if we reconfigure the receivers, we might be able to send a message back through the same signal, and then if it is McKay, he should send in the next line."

"Why the next line?" Surprisingly, it was Ronan who asked this.

"Because that is what we did with the message. We would repeat the same line over and over again until it was sent back to us, and then we would move on to the next line." Radek explained while Grodin started tapping on his computer and working on the Ancient consul.

"Wait a second, why did the Ancients use Morse Code?" Caldwell asked, while Sheppard looked at Zelenka expectantly.

"Well, it was a very good system to use to send secret messages. There was practically no way that the Wraith could read the message, so it was actually quite useful." Dr. Grodin replied this time, since Zelenka was busy at another consul. Woolsey nodded, having already read Zelenka's report.

"Okay, that should do it. I have sent back the sentence. Now, we just have to wait and see if McKay sends back the next line. No one other than Dr. Woolsey knew that we were doing this, so no one else could know to send back the next line except Rodney." Dr. Zelenka said, his eyes hopeful.

The next few minutes were spent in agonizing silence, the entire Gate Room listening for those few bleeps that would mean that Rodney was alive and well enough to be doing the Ancient Morse Code.

Several minutes later, bleeps were heard coming from Radek's computer. Everyone's eyes grew big, and Zelenka started to type furiously on his computer. A moment later, he looked at the anxious group of people in front of him and smiled.

"It is the next line of the report. I believe that this is Dr. McKay."

Almost everyone let go of a breath they did not know they were holding in. Just as Sheppard began to say something, Radek held up his hand, and immediately silence took over.

"Atlantis. Come in …. Stuck…-umper doors won't op-…Hurt pretty bad…Radek if you can hea-….Reconfig-…-unications…reply." Then there was silence.

"What did he say?" Ronan's voice broke the silence and brought Zelenka into action. He started to type furiously and a few moments later, Dr. McKay's voice came in loud and clear.

"Okay Radek, if you've reconfigured the sensors, you'll be able to hear me, but you'll need to do more than that to be able to respond. You'll have to go down to my lab. There's a consul there filled with crystals. On the third row, fourth from the right, is an advanced communications crystal. You know where to put it. Hurry, please. I'll keep repeating this, just in case you haven't caught it yet."

Jennifer made a noise like a happy mouse and then hugged Teyla tightly, which made everyone else, except Kavanagh, smile and look at each other, relieved.

Rodney was alive.

**A/N- Okay, hopefully you understand the time-line, and all that other stuff better. I'm sorry it was confusing. I'm not sure if i'm getting Dr. Woolsey right, because i know his character from Star-Trek Voyager better, so I might accidentally mix the two up. There isn't a lot of him in this chapter, and i'm not sure how much of him will be in the others, but there might be a lot, so if i'm getting it, like, really, incredibly, horribly wrong, please tell me! Oh and remember, READ & REVIEW!**


	2. When You Fix The Communications

**A/N- Hey Everyone! CHAPTER 2! Yay! I got it out in good time. So, everyone who read the first chapter before I changed it a bit should probably go back and at least look at the Author's Note, just so that you're not confused at all, because I like to know that the readers understand and stuff. Well, I hope you all like this chapter! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer- No, I'm pretty sure i still don't own Stargate: Atlantis, SG1, or MGM, however sad that fact might be. **

The room was incredibly tense. Eight people were seated around the white, glowing, horse-shoe shaped table, each waiting in worry, each feeling their patience drain away, some more than others. Col.'s Caldwell, Carter, Sheppard, Dr.'s Carson and Keller, Teyla, Ronan, and Dr. Woolsey had been waiting for only ten minutes, and they were already feeling like they might explode with the suspense. Dr. Zelenka had called them into the room, saying that he thought him and the other scientist had finally, after an hour, finished the reconfigurations and that he was ready to try to respond to Rodney McKay's transmission. That had been ten minutes ago, and they were nervous. Had something gone wrong? Was it working? Would they be able to contact Rodney?

Jennifer had had to stop and sit in the middle of one of the corridors after they heard from Rodney because she had started to hyperventilate. She sat there, in the dark, grey and white corridor, just trying to breath. She had been so worried. She had just needed to sit down as the fact that he was okay crashed down on her, drowning her. Teyla had come and had sat down next her, putting her arms around her shoulders, a soft, Teyla-like smile on her face. After a few moments, the two stood up together and walked back to the busy, slightly crowded Gate Control Room.

Sheppard and Ronan had walked behind Dr. Zelenka all the way down to Rodney's lab, and then they had followed him up to the main communications control crystal board, and then they had watched him as he dribbled on in Czech and started doing things they didn't quite understand with the crystals. Finally, after Radek got incredibly annoyed with their looming over him like over-protective security guards, or children (he couldn't decide which one fit better), he kicked them out of the lab. They had spent the rest of the time before Radek called them watching the progress of the reconfiguring of the scanners.

Heads snapped up as they heard footsteps coming towards the briefing room, and Dr. Zelenka came hurrying in and sat down next to the Atlantian view screen, his hair in disarray, most likely because of leaning into a conduit. He opened up his computer and started tapping, sending an apologetic look around the room, which was met with blank, angry, excited, and anxious looks.

"Atlantis, come in, please? Come on, Radek, you should have finished it by now, right? Or not." They all jumped as they heard Rodney's voice float out from seemingly nowhere, and then they looked toward the doors before turning back to Radek, some wearing sheepish looks. Zelenka rolled his eyes at Rodney's transmission, before speaking.

"We think that we have done it, and we are ready to respond to Rodney's "Plea" now. Dr. Woolsey, would you like to do the honors?" He turned to Dr. Woolsey, wearing a look of expectancy and a bit of hopefulness. Dr. Woolsey nodded and swallowed before speaking in a loud, clear voice.

'Dr. McKay, this is Atlantis, please respond…" The tension in the room mounted, everyone waiting in suspense for what they hoped would be a reply from Rodney. After a while, John bit his lip and started to sink back into the straight-backed, black chair, but his action was immediately reversed as Rodney's voice broke out, slightly distorted, over the radio.

"Oh, thank whoever it is that seems to be watching and protecting us!" Relief flooded the minds of almost everyone in the room, and this time John really did sink back into his chair, but more from relief than anything. His action was quickly mirrored by the others, before small smiled were shared by all.

"I was starting to think that maybe I should re-verse my instructions. So, Radek, figure it out?" Though the question was sarcastic, Rodney's voice held none of its usual arrogance or bite-like-ness. This worried everyone more than anything else did.

"Yes, Rodney, we did figure it out." Radek said, his face creased in a frown; he too had obviously noticed the lack of Rodney's usual tone.

"Rodney, do you know where you are?" Carter spoke up, hoping against hope that this would all be behind them by the end of the day.

"You mean you don't? Ugh, no I don't. I was hoping you did. You see, I'm stuck in the front compartment of the Jumper, and the main view screen is black." Rodney's words did nothing to improve anyone's spirit, not that they were expecting them to.

"How did you get stuck in the front compartment, Rodney?" Teyla asked, her usually calm features creased slightly in worry, her posture tense. Everyone turned to the computer as though it really was Rodney.

"Umm, well, it seems that some sort of shock, most likely a blast from a weapon, hit the door crystals on the other side of the doors, burning them out, to put it simply." Dr. Zelenka nodded, but Sheppard, Ronan, Teyla, Col Caldwell, and Carter had caught something else in that sentence that they thought was much more important.

"Blast from a weapon? Rodney, were you in a fight?" Sheppard's words caught the attention of everyone who hadn't understood Rodney's words before. Once again, the air of the room was filled with tension.

"Honestly? I don't remember." He said, clearly intent on speaking some more, but he was cut off by a very anxious Jennifer.

"You can't remember? Did you hit your head? Were you drugged?" Both Keller and Carson immediately took on that look that they had whenever they had to take a diagnosis over a radio, as they sometimes had to for off-world teams that they couldn't get to. It was a look kind of like they were trying to picture everything that was happening while at the same time trying to decide what the best course of action would be.

"No, I can't remember. Yes, I hit my head. About being drugged, I sincerely hope not, because that could be incredibly bad for my blood sugar or something." His voice sounded like his usual hypochondriac-ness, but underneath the surface, both doctors could recognize the real worry.

"Okay, Rodney, just tell us _exactly _what you remember and know." John calmly said, hoping that whatever he knew or remembered might shed a bit more light on the situation.

"Well, from what I can tell, there was obviously a fight back here. Maybe between whoever took me. Two of the chairs have their tops blown out, and there are black scorch marks on the walls and consuls. So, the fight obviously got a bit ugly. I tried to scan the surrounding area, but all that the scans told me is that the Jumper is on a flat surface. A lot of help that was. The shields are going haywire. They keep changing frequencies, but basically staying at one that the scanners aren't programmed to work with. I don't know what's causing the interference, but whatever it is, it's not coming from the crystals that control the shields. At first I thought it was, but a closer looked told me that, yes, there was a small problem with one of the crystals and command units, but not something that would cause this. It makes no sense."

Radek looked thoughtful and started to murmur under his breath in Czech. Everyone else was thinking about what Rodney had said. So, the people that had taken Rodney had fought. Over what? Why had they worked together to kidnap Rodney, just to jeopardize the whole mission by fighting with each other? And what had caused them to start fighting _then, _instead of while they were in Atlantis, or after they had gotten to wherever their destination was? Why _had _they taken Rodney?

Col. Carter was thinking more towards what was causing the shields to go haywire. Her frown deepened. Like Rodney said, it just made no sense. They should be working fine. And to add to that, he was obviously still on the planet if he wasn't in the surrounding space, so why couldn't their scanners pick him up?

"Rodney, we're having trouble with our scanners. They can't pick up you or the Jumper you're in. Could the shields be causing that?" Her eyes flew from Radek's grey computer to her own black one, looking at the report from Hermiod and Radek.

There was silence on the other end. Rodney was probably checking his own reports and internal scanners.

"Hmm. It…might be. But I can't really...say for sure." There were pauses when he spoke, most likely caused by him going out of range, or checking on something on the other side. Carter nodded, tapping at her own computer, running a few diagnostics on their own scanning system and on that of the Dedaulus.

"Do you think that if you told us the frequency, we might be able to match either Atlantis' or the Dedaulus' so that they could detect the Jumper?" Carter didn't even look up as she spoke, her eyes focused intently on the computer screen, Zelenka mirroring her actions.

There was more silence. "In normal circumstances, that would be the first thing that I suggested, but the thing is, the Jumpers shields are _continually changing_ the frequencies, and it's getting harder to know which one it will be at any given time." Carter bit her lip and looked up, but her eyes were far from the room, and in a second she had turned back to the computer.

They could hear snapping on the other side of the radio, and John just had to grin. Rodney's habit of snapping his fingers whenever he had a good idea, often meant that his idea was better than good, and then he would do something miraculous, and they would all end up living. Snapping of fingers was a good sign.

"Maybe…yes, that could work." They waited for him to say more, but he didn't.

"Uh, Rodney?" Sam asked, a few locks of hair falling into her face.

"Oh, sorry. Yes, I think I have an idea. I may be able to make a way to detect when the frequency will change. So, I could give you a specific frequency and then alert you to when it will be used, so you could scan at that exact moment and—AGH." His sentence was cut off by a painful sounding yell that made everyone jump.

"RODNEY!" Nine voices screamed at once, the owners of the voices jumping off their chairs, fearing the worst. "Rodney!" They yelled again, their voices fear-filled and anxious.

"I-It's okay. Really, I'm fine. I just f-fell." His voice crackled out of the computer.

"Fell? How far exactly? Off a cliff? That's what it sounds like. Rodney, are you hurt?" John's voice was dangerously low, as it got when he was worried.

"Yes. Yes, I am hurt. All the more reason for us to figure this out quickly so I can get medical attention." His voice sounded like he was gritting his teeth. The fact that he wasn't complaining scared them more than anything else.

"Rodney," Jennifer started in a dangerous voice. She was angry that he hadn't told her from the start. If not as his doctor, than at least as his girlfriend, or the other way around. "How are you hurt, and what is hurt?"

Rodney must have heard her tone, because he answered slowly. "Well, I'm pretty sure I have a concussion, just a small one, though, and my left wrist is sprained, or probably worse, my back hurts, I've probably gotten some disease or something, and my left leg is broken, and I have a knife wound between my pelvis and lower right rib, and"—, but he was cut off by several gasps.

"A knife wound? Rodney, why did you not tell us this immediately?" Teyla voiced everyone's thoughts, her voice crisp and worried.

"Well, umm, I don't even really feel it anymore. So, I guess I just forgot or something. I mean, it doesn't even hurt, really, at all, so I just…" He was rambling. Not a good sign. Jennifer and Carson looked at each other, eyes conveying a silent message between two doctors.

"Rodney, how long has it not hurt?" Carson asked, sitting down slowly, his hands on the table for support.

"I'm not really sure. About fifteen minutes or so. Why?" Rodney's voice sounded worried. The doctors' strange inquiry most likely piqued up his over-active imagination.

"Did you notice anything…strange about the wound?" Carson ignored Rodney's question, countering with his own.

"Strange? Other than that it was there and bleeding pretty badly, no, I don't think there was anything wrong with it. Well, actually, that depends on what you call wrong." Rodney's usual sarcasm surfaced with Carson's question, making both doctors sigh in exasperation and mounting exhaustion.

"Rodney, thes is very important. We need to ken if thaur is somethin', anythin', different about yer wound frae the other ones you've seen or had." Carson's voice was heavily accented by this point, making him slightly harder to understand. There was more silence on the other side, giving the others a chance to talk amongst themselves, quietly, for a moment.

"What's wrong, doc's?" Sheppard asked, his brow furrowed in worry and confusion. Jennifer and Carson shared a look before Jennifer answered the question.

"We think that the wound might be infected, in which case, we need to find him soon, like now actually. It needs to be treated." She looked troubled, her eyes wandering around the room, stopping briefly at Radek's computer. "Plus, I'm not sure how much longer Rodney can last without food. You know he's hypoglycemic. And, his claustrophobia could kick in at any time." Carson nodded. Dr. Woolsey suddenly looked much older than he was, a feat that Sam, Sheppard, and Carson all seemed to be mirroring. Teyla looked up, confusion in her eyes.

"But, are there not emergency rations as well as water inside the Jumper, in both the front and back compartments?" Everyone looked up at that: It was clear that this detail had been quite forgotten in the melee. Sheppard nodded, but then looked worried again.

"The Jumper was being repaired before it flew outta here, were the emergency rations kept in there any way?" He turned to look at Radek who had been heading the repairs. Radek looked up, a slightly confused look on his face, as though he hadn't really been listening.

'Wha—Oh yes, I mean no. We never take out the emergency water, food, or kit. They should still be there. But, knowing Rodney, that would have been the first thing he went for." He smirked slightly, knowing full well that it was Rodney who had insisted on putting a kit in both compartments.

"Carson? Jennifer? Hello?" Rodney's voice cackled from the computer, reminding everyone that Rodney was still lost somewhere, alone and hurt.

"Yes Dr. McKay? We're here." Dr. Woolsey replied, sitting back in his former chair, the others following suit.

"Carson, no, I didn't find anything strange about the wound. Now, can we _please _get back to what we were doing?"

"It's all right Rodney; I get what you were saying. Just," Carter sighed and ran a hand through her hair, "Just do whatever you need to do to the shields. Contact us when you have what you need, alright?" She looked up at Dr. Woolsey, a silent ask for permission. He nodded.

"Yeah, okay. I'll just…Get to work then." He said quietly, his voice sounding exhausted. Everyone nodded before remembering that he couldn't actually see them.

"Alright Rodney. Just, call us when you're done." Sheppard said, knowing that using "call" instead of radio would annoy Rodney greatly, which only served to make John happier, as it always did.

Everyone stood up, some faster than others, and walked out to do their various duties, Carter, Caldwell, and Zelenka heading toward the Dedaulus, Jennifer and Carson to the infirmary, SGA1 to their rooms, finally able to rest after hearing Rodney's voice, and Dr. Woolsey to his office, where he sank down into his chair. It had been a long day.

Rodney wiped his brow and sat down on the co-pilot's seat. He had been working hard at fixing up the internal sensors so that he would be able to detect when the frequency would change and what it would change to. Then, he would "Call" Atlantis to tell them what frequency to change their scanners to, and when to scan. They would find him, and all would be well.

_Yeah right! When is anything that easy? _He thought to himself as he ate, no, _tore apart,_ another power bar. He sighed again before settling back. Unfortunately, he forgot that both the co-pilot's seat and the seat behind that both had their tops blown off. He fell flat onto the ground and yelled out in pain. Even if the knife wound didn't just hurt, whenever something hit it hard it sent several incredibly strong and painful shock waves through his body. He gritted his teeth to keep him from screaming again and tried to stand back up, which only resulted in him falling down again, on his stomach this time. He left leg twisted painfully, causing him to cry out in pain again. His right hand swooped out in front of him, trying to grab onto something squeezable. His hand hit something small, hard, and smooth.

Rodney frowned as he slowly, and in great pain, stood up, taking the small device with him. He sat down in the seat behind the pilot's and looked at the device.

It was small, a bit bigger than an ancient person shield, flat on one side and rounded on the other, shaped like a pointy egg, and was obviously of Ancient design. Rodney had never seen anything like it, but what caught his attention was the fact that it had obviously been broken and someone had tried to fix it by doing the equivalent of gluing and taping it back together. Rodney's frown deepened. He had _definitely _never seen the device before. And if anyone on Atlantis had found it they would have immediately taken it to him, Dr. Woolsey, Zelenka, or someone else in the Science team, and then they would have brought it to him, or at least informed him about it.

_Who was the _idiot _who tried to fix it like this? _He wandered to himself, confusion filling his features. He lifted his left hand, which still hurt incredibly badly, to his mouth, fully intent on having another bite of the power bar. But, as he found out about half a second later, the power bar had fallen with him, and was still on the floor. He sighed and stared at it longingly, as though he thought that it would just appear in his hand. Sadly, though, it did not, and he reasoned that if he wanted it, he would have to go get it.

He put the strange and badly repaired device on the chair behind the pilot's and then slowly lowered himself down to the floor, taking great pains not to hit his leg, and then reached over and grabbed his fallen power bar.

He gingerly sat back up on the chair and took a bit of the bar before setting it down on the consul between the two front seats. He turned to the seat that he had put the devise on and his eyes grew wide.

Instead of a small ancient device on a grey, burned seat, there was…nothing. Just nothing. It was like the seat and the device had never even been. He reached out to the seat, fully expecting to only touch air, but instead his hand touched something solid, something that felt just like the seat did. His hand continued to feel the coarse, bumpy feeling seat as it went down to the part that you sat on, and then found the device. He tried to pick it up, but it seemed stuck to the seat. He pulled harder, his hand gripping the seat hard. His thumb and middle finger touched two small, tip of the finger sized indented areas, and his fingers squeezed it. The device immediately un-stuck and came loose.

Rodney held it up to his face, looking at it closely. His mind was practically going a hundred miles an hour.

Someone sneaks into Atlantis, no one knows how, no one ever sees that person, somehow that person sneaks up on Rodney without him ever seeing, and then that person sneaks the Jumper away without alerting anyone. How could he or she have done that without being detected or seen even once?

Rodney looked at the device again, before putting it on the chair again. He watched as the chair seemed to "ripple" like a wave, and then disappear. He grabbed the device, putting his fingers in the same places, and then he felt the device loosen its' hold on the chair and come loose completely. He looked at it closely again before sighing and putting on his incredulous, amazed, annoyed, and why-does-this-always-seem-to-happen face.

_You have got to be kidding me._

**A/N-OOOH, twist! Invisible, meaningless points to whoever can guess what Rodney's thinking! Hope you liked it! Please Read and Review, it make me happy, and constructive criticism is _always _appreciated, and complements are liked as well! **

**Oh, and this is just a warning. I have school, a lot actually, and so I'm not sure how much writing I'll be able to get done during the week-days. However, I really love writing, and I love where this story is going, so I'll most likely write every day. So, the updates will probably just be put off by like one or two days. The good news is that I was able to write this chapter in basically one day, with a little going into the other day, and I've already started on chapter three!**


	3. When Outsiders Have The ATA Gene

**A/N-Hey everyone! I'm back with the third chapter! Yay me! Thank-you, everyone that has read and reviewed this story. Constructive criticism is _always _appreciated, and I always listen to it. So, I hope you like this chapter. It's like nineteen pages on Word, so, it's pretty long. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!**

**Disclaimer-I still don't own Stargate: Atlantis or anything connected to it. if I did, you would see my face on T.V. with the actors. So, i don't own anything you recognize. **

Rodney looked over at the upside-down ancient device that he had put on the co-pilot's seat, and then he looked back at his work. He glanced at it again and then back at his work. The consul he was leaning over was incredibly bright in contrast to the dimmed lights of the Jumper, and every time he looked away from, and then back at it, he had to squint for a few moments. This was something he did often: either to look at the device or to go to another consul or crystal board.

He had been working for the last half hour on a sure way to detect when the frequencies of the Jumper's shield would change. He had figured out quickly enough that he needed to know the frequencies of both the Dedaulus and Atlantis, to compare them to the Jumper's. He had just finished his side of the calculations so he wouldn't have to do them later. He would have to get Carter's and Zelenka's help with the frequencies of the other scanners, though.

"Atlantis, Come in. It's McKay." He waited a few seconds and was just reaching out his right hand to hit the communications button again when he heard a voice cackling through the speakers.

"Dr. McKay, this is Dr. Woolsey, we hear you." Rodney nodded, not really caring that no one could see him, or perhaps it had just become a habit.

"Okay, I'm going to need to talk to Carter and Zelenka. I need to know the frequencies of the Dedaulus and Atlantis." He said, his eyes trained on the consul where he had been doing his calculations.

"There's also something important I want to talk to all of you about." Rodney continued, finally looking up from the glowing consul.

"Alright, as soon as I can I'll get them in here, but they ran out to do something important that they conveniently forgot to tell me about, and they haven't come back yet." Dr. Woolsey sounded slightly annoyed, but curious at the same time. Rodney frowned slightly, wondering what it could be that was so important they weren't there when he called. He gave a non-committed half shrug-half grunt, and then went back to his work.

"So, why is this so important, again?" John was sitting on a grey chair in one of the main science labs, Rodney, Teyla, Carson, and Jennifer sitting in similar chairs around him, watching Carter and Zelenka run around looking at different consuls or writing down things here and there. Zelenka sighed, and Carter straightened up before walking towards them, sighing as well.

"Okay, well you see, it can be really hard to detect when a shield or scanner's frequency will change, especially when it's not meant to do that, and even harder to make them change. It's incredibly easy to do it with communications, but not with scanners or shields." Mostly blank looks meant her somewhat lacking explanation. She sighed again before launching into the type of explanation she would give General Jack O'Neal when he was still a part of SG1.

"The frequency of a shield or scanner is like its' copy right. Each exact frequency's code is unique to the people who build it, like the Asgards or Ancients. The Ancient ones are specifically engineered to where the frequency would be incredibly hard to change, so that no one would be able to steal it. If someone stole the ancient shield technology, the Ancients would be able to track down the devise by locating its' frequency, making it hard for anyone to steal it. Now, to be able to steal it, they would have to change the frequency. Even harder to change is the code." She said. John nodded, understanding what she was saying, but Teyla and Ronan still seemed slightly confused.

"But I have often seen you change the frequency of shields so they can detect certain things, or so that a weapon will be able to get through it." Teyla said, her eyes narrowing slightly in an inquisitive manner.

"In that case, we only alter the frequency. In this case, we're going to change it and its' code completely, which is as hard as making a whole new one. It won't be easy. I'm pretty sure that Rodney will need to know the current frequency of both the Dedaulus and Atlantis, and he'll need to know what we can change the frequency to. What we're doing here is just fixing up the communications system so that we'll be able to see Rodney too. That way, it will be easier to work together, and we'll be able to find him faster, meaning he'll be able to be treated faster, and whatever virus you think he has will be gone sooner."

Everyone else nodded, happy with whatever got Rodney home faster.

Radek stood up from his chair, his laptop in hand, and nodded at Carter, who nodded back. Radek then Radioed Caldwell and told him to meet them in the Briefing Room in five minutes.

"Okay, we're ready to go give this a shot." She turned and walked out of the bright, grey ancient lab, quickly followed by the others.

"How much longer exactly is this gonna take?" Sheppard was bored, annoyed, and tired; he really had not wanted to wait for half an hour in those uncomfortable briefing chairs, his feet on the table, while Carter and Zelenka set up a video link with McKay, something he found unnecessary. He drummed his fingers on the table, making Zelenka look up in annoyance. He, unlike Rodney would, said nothing, so John just continued to drum his fingers on the table, and act that was quickly followed by a bored, tired, and annoyed looking Ronan, who shared John's thoughts.

Carter took a deep breath, trying to calm her mounting annoyance. Finally, unable to take it anymore, she turned to tell them to stop, but one look at the two men, both looking worried and anxious despite their attempts to hide it, and she found she had lost her voice.

"Not much longer, Colonel." She connected one of the computer's wires so the ancient communications device. She looked at the readings on her computer and lifted her eyebrows. _Why didn't I try that in the first place, _she thought to herself. "Actually, John, we're done. We can try it out now."

John clapped his hands, lifted his feet off the table, and sat up straight, Ronan quickly following suit. Teyla smiled slightly at the men's antics, an action that Carter was having a hard time disguising.

"Zelenka? Are you ready?" Carter turned to the Czech scientist, who nodded yes at her. She nodded back before sitting down and turning on the com unit.

"Rodney, come in." She said and stopped speaking, chewing on her bottom lip.

"Yeah, finally you're here. I was beginning to think that you had been kidnapped too." His voice held a joking, arrogant air to it, but there was a slight tone of worry under it.

"Rodney, turn on your view screen. We've fixed the Com Unit to give video feed as well. We think it'll be easier to work if we can see the Jumper. Dr. Zelenka might be able to help you fix a few things." Carter leaned forward slightly as though she thought she would be able to hear Rodney better if she were a little bit closer.

There was silence for a few moments, and the Ancient view screen turned on. There was static for a minute, and then faint outlines started to appear.

"Zelenka, raise the resolution." Carter ordered, and Radek swiftly did as she commanded. The picture cleared up all at once, and the picture it showed made several in the room gasp.

Rodney had _not _been kidding when he said how much the Jumper was messed up. There were scorch marks _everywhere_, the lights seemed to only be able to give off a feeble light, making the radically blinking lights from several different consuls and stations all the brighter.

And Rodney himself…Saying he looked pretty messed up would be an understatement. There was a long, deep gash going from his right cheek down his neck, stopping right above his right shoulder blade. He had put bandages on two parts of his head, but the bandages were pretty blood stained, and they weren't big enough to cover the gash on his forehead. He had wrapped his left wrist in a roll of gauze, but every movement seemed to cause pain. And his shirt on the right side was blood soaked, as was the bandage that he had put over the wound. He raised an eyebrow at them before turning back to the consul in front of him.

Finally getting a grip of himself, John spoke up.

"Hey Rodney, looking good." His voice was playful, trying to lighten the mood. Although it didn't work for those in the _actual _room, Rodney sent him a grateful look, and actually smiled a bit.

"Can't really say the same for you, can I Sheppard?" He smirked at him. John rolled his eyes before lifting his hand to mess up his hair and smirk back.

"Alright, Gentlemen, I believe there's something more important to do here." Dr. Woolsey said, his voice carrying a slightly nervous sound. Jennifer took a deep breath before speaking as well.

"Rodney, first off, you need to change that bandage on your head, and then the one you put on the knife wound. You're still bleeding too much." She had only just started, but stopped at Rodney's head shake.

"I only have one of the Emergency Medical Kits, and I've already used all the gauze, and most of the bandages. I'm waiting till it gets really bad to change the one on my head, but I'm pretty sure that the bleeding's stopped." This was very bad news, as everyone knew just by the looks on Carson's and Jennifer's faces.

"Alright, Rodney, I think we should get to work." Carter was cut off before she could tell everyone else, minus Zelenka, that they could leave, by Rodney.

"Actually, there's something important that I need to tell you, and all of you should be here. I believe I know how the intruder-turned-kidnapper got into Atlantis." If Rodney didn't have everyone's full attention before, he did now. Rodney seemed to have noticed this little fact, because the next second he had plowed on to a full blown explanation of his hypothesis/theory.

"Okay, so earlier I was leaning back on that chair," He pointed at the co-pilot's seat, making Sheppard smile slightly, imagining Rodney falling back wards from the chair, as he was sure that was what had happened, "I fell, and I found this." He held up the small, pointy, egg-shaped, Ancient devise, drawing everyone's attention towards it.

"What is it?" Ronan asked gruffly. Rodney smirked at him, mischief evident in his bright-blue, lightening eyes.

"This, my oversized friend, is a personal invisibility device, not a cloak, but a pure invisibility devise, like the Goa'uld Nirrti's." His smirk grew wider, leaning more towards a mischievous smile now, as everyone stared back at it, shocked. In all of their time with Ancient devices, they had never found one that would make something invisible. A cloaking devise simply hid something, and would never have worked on a person, at least not well.

"So, it turns people invisible?" Zelenka's eyes were wide at the thought.

"Yes, but it also turns things, and entire Jumpers invisible." He looked meaningfully at Sheppard, Caldwell, and Carter, all who understood where he was going with it.

"I've been studying it a bit, and from what I can tell, it most likely has a size range, and won't turn something say, bigger than a Jumper, invisible, and nothing smaller than this would fit on." He explained further, his eyes averting to the small devise.

"And…" Sheppard made forward circles with his hands, waiting for Rodney to say what he thought he would say.

"Here's what I think. Someone or someones, found this devise and tried to fix it." He motioned to the "duck tape" and "glue", "But, noticed that it wasn't completely fixed. The people probably met one of our SG teams. So, after hearing that we lived in the "City of the Ancients" the people probably put on the devise and followed the team through the Star Gate. Then, they probably watched, looking for someone who would know how to fix it. Actually, they could have been here for days, weeks, months, and we wouldn't have known. I mean, we don't often scan the Gate Room for invisible beings.

"So, then they kidnapped me after seeing that I was the head of the Science Department, and could have possibly either cloaked the Jumper or put this device on it, and then they fought about who knows what, and messed up the Jumper and then the Jumper landed…somewhere." He said, speaking quickly as he often did when he was excited or had a good idea. The others in the room nodded, but there was still a gap in that explanation.

"Rodney, how did those people activate the devise? Is it not gene controlled?" Teyla asked, her reddish-brown hair falling into her face.

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that. We've already found out that a few Ancients didn't like how they worked and moved away. They probably had kids, and then those kids had kids and those kids and kids, etc. So, these people could be offspring of an ancient or two." Dr. McKay said, his right hand flying around in his usual hand motions, looking quite lonely without the left hand. And then he smiled again. "Look at this." He said, picking up the device that he had put on the co-pilot's seat.

He put the devise on the consul between both front seats, and then lifted his hands away. The consul rippled like water, and then disappeared. Rodney lifted his hand up and down behind where the consul should have been. His hand was clearly visible. Carter nodded, looking interested and impressed.

"So, how do you get it off?" She asked, her dark blue eyes trained on the place the consul should have been.

"Ah," Rodney said, moving his hand back to where he had put the devise. He put his hand around air, and then pressed, and a moment later the devise had come free and the consul had rippled back into sight. Rodney held up the devise on its side.

"See there's this little dent here, just big enough for a finger, there's one on the other side too. You just press, and the devise comes free!" He seemed very happy with himself for discovering this fact. Carter's brow furrowed as she thought.

"Rodney, could there be more of those?" She asked, her eyes searching his face.

"Umm, I haven't seen any, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any. Why?" He replied, looking at Sam, slightly suspicious. But Carter just shook her head; sure that what she thought wasn't right. Rodney looked at her strangely, but said nothing.

Rodney stood up slowly, wincing slightly but enough for those in the room to notice.

"Rodney, what are you doing?" Sheppard asked, his eyes' moving down to Rodney's injured leg which was bleeding slightly from a cut.

"We," He pointed at Zelenka and Carter, "Have work to do. That work needs me to move around. So, I'm moving around." He said sarcastically. Jennifer winced as Rodney gave a light gasp.

"Rodney, I really think you should stay off that leg. Can't you work from that consul, instead of having to move around?" Jennifer asked, Carson nodding beside her. "It would be better—Rodney!" Rodney had lurched backwards and fallen into the main controls, yelling quietly in the process.

Rodney felt himself fall and heard Jennifer yell his name, but he was concentrating more on the hot pain shooting through his leg. He reached out his right hand for support on the main control consul, and immediately wished he hadn't. He had hit the Jumper's equivalent to the "go" button. Even though the most of the control crystals were burned out, one or two was still working, albeit minimally. The only thing that they could do though was make the Jumper move a little bit, and Rodney didn't know where he was, so he didn't dare try to move.

The Jumper was controlled by thought, but there were controls as well, controls which could be broken, just like the link between someone with the ATA gene and the Jumper could be broken.

Immediately after he hit the "go" button, the Jumper lurched forward and then sideways! Rodney fell down hard, his side and leg sending pain waves through his body making him gasp. Suddenly, the lights went off, but the Jumper kept moving. It was like he had been at the top of a hill of some sorts and that small lurch was sending them down. He slid forward and hit his head on the front consul. He felt like his stomach was dancing with his intestines, and not doing a good job of it. The jumper continued to move forward and down, slowly.

Rodney didn't know which way was up and which was down, his mind was just spinning so fast, like a child had started to spin a globe around and around. Rodney could hear the bottom of the Jumper creak and screech against whatever it was the Jumper was on. It sounded like metal scraping metal. Suddenly, the Jumper sped up and then stopped abruptly, as though it had hit something to make it stop. It crashed into whatever had stopped it, sending one of the broken-off-backs of one of the seats crashing into Rodney's leg.

Rodney was lurched even harder against the consul and his left leg hit the pilot's seat hard, causing several more bursts of pain to shoot through his body, temporarily numbing his mind. His mind wasn't working right, and everything was a blur. The seats and consuls were blending together with the walls of the Jumper. He could no longer tell the difference between his leg and the floor of the Jumper.

He opened his eyes wider, trying to stop his head from spinning quite so fast. Suddenly, the Jumper gave a last, final lurch, sending the back of the co-pilot's seat, a large, black hole in it, right into his face, the metal that was on the bottom of the seat hitting the wound in his forehead. The last thing he saw was the seat on the floor next to him, blood stained.

The briefing room was silent. They had watched helplessly as the Jumper had lurched forward and as Rodney had fallen down, unable to hold himself up during the violent motions of the Jumper.

Each person had gone through basically three levels of helplessness: the first was surprise as they watched the Jumper lurch forward and Rodney fall down; the second, fear that Rodney had gotten hurt, knowing there was nothing they could do if he had; the third, suspense, each hoping for the best, that being that Rodney would wake up and would be fine, but each preparing for the worst, that being, Rodney would be…well, not so fine.

Rodney still hadn't gotten up. He was just lying there. The bad thing, well, one of the bad things, was that they couldn't see his head, only his legs and his left arm. Sheppard was past worry now. No, he had passed worry several hours ago. He was now leaning more towards the calm insanity. It was a condition he suffered often. He was pretty sure it started to get big right about when that weird drone thing started to chase him and General O'Neal. And then, it only intensified when he had gone on to the Wraith ship, and had shot the Colonel. Five years later and he could still remember it like it was yesterday. This calm insanity was something he had always had to an extent. I mean, how otherwise would he have been able to live through the war as well as he did, even making Col., at such a young age, even though he was demoted? And here, well, it was probably the only thing that constantly kept him calm enough to get them all out alive.

Right now, that same calm insanity was taking over. He knew they needed to find Rodney and that they needed to do it fast. He looked around the table. Everyone else looked worried, Jennifer leaning forward in her seat as though he might be able to see Rodney better that way. Sheppard actually had to wince at how helpless and _broken _Jennifer looked. He sighed, looking down at his folded hands.

He looked around again, knowing he should say something to get them out of the shock that they seemed to be in, but he couldn't think of the words to say. Suddenly, he saw Rodney's leg moved, and Jennifer leaning even farther in her seat told him that she had seen it too.

"Rodney?" John called, knowing he wasn't going to get an answer, but calling out anyway, his voice trembling slightly, barely noticeably. Carter, Teyla, and Carson glanced at him quickly, each having broken out of whatever type of helpless shock they had been in. Rodney didn't move again, and Sheppard felt his calm insanity being stretched slightly, as though someone was testing just how far it would go. But they had been through worse, and they would go through even worse before their time was done.

"He needs immediate medical attention." Jennifer spoke so quickly, her words sounded like only one word. Sheppard knew she knew that they couldn't get to Rodney, but none of them seemed to want to say this out loud.

"Rodney, please if you can hear, try to move." Teyla said, loudly but calmly, the only indication that she was worried was her furrowed brow and her incredibly tensed body.

John grimaced as he looked back at Rodney. The scientist didn't move, at least not enough for them to think he had heard.

John sighed, his patience dwindling quickly. _Come on, McKay, just wake up and tell us your brilliant plan, and how much of a genius you are so we can all go home. _He knew these thoughts weren't very founded, considering Rodney probably didn't want to be stuck inside that little front compartment, injured in several places, no memory of how he got there, or who had kidnapped him…_If only I had figured out that he was missing sooner. Maybe we could have detected the Jumper before he went down. Maybe we could have found Rodney and his captors, put the latter in the brig and the former in the infirmary, and by now we would all be laughing at the "what-if's" of the after-mission kind. If only I had—_

But he stopped thinking at that. He had learned a long time ago that "what-if's", "if-only's", and "maybe's" were completely worthless, since only in the very rare chance of someone going back into the past through the Stargate, could they change the past. He highly doubted there would be any time-Stargate-travel. He put his head down and closed his eyes, mentally willing Rodney to wake up and be fine. Hey, it worked with Ancient technology.

Rodney didn't know how long he had been lying there. He didn't know if it was light or dark. He didn't know what was up and what was down. He didn't know where those voices were coming from. What he did know was that his head hurt like crazy, his leg and wrist were sending waves of pain through his body that made him shake, and that his side was hurting dully. For some reason, that made his side hurt more than any other part of his body: the dull pain that was shooting through his entire right side.

He was dizzy; actually, he was pretty sure that was the understatement of the century. It hurt to breathe, he found out. Rodney tried to take shallow, steadying breaths, but it just didn't work like that. Shallow was for panic and oxygen deprivation, deep was for calm and oxygen in plenty. _Whoever came up with _that_ is an idiot, _he found himself thinking dully.

He tried to move but his body didn't want to obey him. It was quite aggravating, really, not being able to move.

He tried to breathe slowly, but each breath made explosions in his chest and waves of dizziness in his head, causing a migraine. Rodney really hated migraines. There were a lot of things he could handle: broken bones, punctured lungs, internal bleeding, even hunger, sometimes. But migraines, way worse than headaches, caused him to need to sit down for a while, which would put a stunt in his work, which would be inefficient, and out of order. Plus, they really hurt.

Yet, he knew that breathing was important, actually it was quite vital, so he tried to breathe. This, he found, was quite hard. Really, it felt like he was attempting to breathe through a broken straw while an ostrich sitting on a rhinoceros sitting on an elephant sat on _his _chest. It was highly uncomfortable, and not very easy.

Rodney tried to collect his thoughts, but it was like someone had taken everything in his mind, thoughts and all, and had put them in a bowl, mixed them around, and then put them back in. It was incredibly annoying trying to re-organize his de-organized thoughts.

Every time he tried to figure out why he was on the floor and what had happened to him sitting on the pilot's seat, all he could see was a thick, grey mist covering his memories. And, whenever he tried to order his body to move, it was like his orders were being corrupted by little evil people who stole orders and turned them around, effectively making his body inert.

Rodney took a few deep, shaky but firm, breaths, trying to calm his racing heart and burning head. He knew his breaths were far too quick and jumpy, and that he needed to calm down. Hey, he did learn _something _during his days in Sheppard's team.

The voices he was hearing were getting stronger and the mist in his head was slowly dilapidating. He felt a light, barely there calm start to cover his body, like a thin blanket being laid over him. It calmed him enough to know that he was in shock, and that freaking out was not helping anyone, and especially not him. He continued to breathe, noticing as though watching from far away that his breathing was becoming steadier, less jumpy.

Rodney felt something getting close to his eye, something liquid and hot, and immediately, inadvertently, he lifted his right hand to brush it away. Only after he had put back down his had did he realize that he had lifted. He lifted it again, noticing as he did how much of his strength wasted away to nothingness as he did so. His hand was deathly pale to the point that it almost looked like it was glowing. He could clearly see his purple-blue veins through his white, pale skin.

Rodney grimaced and tried to get up. He felt white-hot pain shoot through his back, side, head, and leg, effectively stopping his actions. It was like someone had decided it would be funny to put a hot iron, or a couple of them, on him. For some reason, he didn't think it was funny at all.

After a few moments of breathing deeply he tried to move again. It was a painstakingly slow, agonizing trek, but after several moments he was able to get onto his knees. He could still hear those voices calling his name, and he thought he recognized some of them, but his foggy brain refused to acknowledge the sounds.

He stopped there on his hands and knees, unable to go any farther than that. He tried to take a few deep breaths, reaching into himself to find those reserves of energy that he had stored up for situations like this. When he found it, it was very nearly depleted. He didn't like that.

Rodney looked around the Jumper, lifting his neck slightly in order to do so. He felt his muscles contract painfully, but he ignored it—for now. The Jumper looked even worse than before, but he could only vaguely recall what had caused it, though his memory of recent events was beginning to come back.

The back of the co-pilot's chair was covered in blood next to him; he could tell that one of the control panels had opened and that a few control crystals had fallen out and lay shattered in a thousand pieces on the floor. It was dark, but not too dark to see. He tried to reach into his mind enough to bring out the ATA gene so that he could access the Jumper's lights, but to no avail—he was just too weak.

His memory had almost fully returned by now. He knew it was most likely only caused by the shock and the wound in his head. But, even though this logic was pretty clear to him, he couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as his mind was, mostly, returned to its previous brilliance.

A vibrant blinking think caught his eye just a few meters ahead and above him. He looked at it closely. It was small, pointy-egg-shaped, and looked a lot like an Ancient Personal Shield. Actually, it looked a lot like that devise he had found—

He looked at it closely. It was blinking radically, but more than just with lights. It seemed to be rippling in and out of visibility, along with different sections of the Jumper.

His eyes got wide as he realized something. There was no way. _Who ever had kidnapped me had found another one of the devices and put it on the Jumper so that they would be able to fly out undetected. But, why didn't they just use the Cloak? Maybe they didn't know how? Of course they didn't, they were probably just some way-too-curious locals. The device must have been injured in whatever it was that happened here. That must be what's causing the scanners to be unable to detect it, and it's also probably what's causing the strange frequency changes in the shield. Wonderful! I could be at the bottom of the ocean for all I know. And then what happens when I take it out? _

He was broken away from his wonderings by his name being called loudly. His eyes widened again as he realized that he _did _recognize the voice.

He turned his head slightly and looked up at the view screen, blinking his eyes radically. The view screen was still in it, and he could see Sheppard and the others looking at him in concern and relief. Rodney could see the not-quite-so-hidden worry deep in John's hazel eyes.

"Rodney, are you okay?" Jennifer. That was Jennifer. He turned his head to look at her, still blinking a lot at the sudden, but dim, light he saw from the view screen.

He nodded, but it quickly became a grimaced shake of the head. He grabbed onto the pilot's seat and slowly started to pull himself into it, each movement sending pain waves throughout his body, making him grimace and gasp silently in pain. He finally made it into the seat and practically collapsed from the pain. He took gasping breaths, trying to quell the great convulsions of pain that rocked his body, making him shake. It was times like this he wondered why _he _had to be the genius.

John felt his spirits rise as he saw McKay get up, slowly but at lease he was moving. They had tried calling his name, but Jennifer and Carson said it wouldn't work then, he was in too much shock. But, they had kept calling, hoping that he would hear them and snap out of it. And, eventually, he had, and then he had looked at them, his eyes glazed over but some of the old McKay still in there somewhere.

To be honest, all of the members of SGA1 had had their doubts at one point or another about how much Rodney could take, and how much he had listened during the safety training, and if he had learned anything from them. But, they had seen countless times Rodney rising to the occasion, doing what he needed to do, always ready to risk his life. And right now, they couldn't help but feel a bit of pride at Rodney being able to overcome yet another disaster, even though he was hurt, which worried them, they were proud.

Finally, Rodney was able to sit down, but he seemed to not be able to hear them, and his eyes were still glazed over, and they could tell just by looking at him that he was pretty sick. He was pretty pale, he was convulsing, his lips were taking on a slightly blue color, and he was shaking, from the cold, the shock, or the convulsion, they couldn't tell.

Dr. Woolsey looked on, fear hidden behind his glasses. Despite what some people thought, he really wasn't completely careless. He did care about the people on the base, and he felt responsible for each and every one of them. He found that things like this, fatal-type things, happened much too often under his command for comfort. He had learned a while ago that there wasn't much he could do about that, except be willing to do everything he could to "never leave a man behind". He thought he had been doing an okay job at the whole thing, but it was days like this, when everything was up to the scientists and search teams, that he felt horrible. He was supposed to be able to do things, but he couldn't do anything during these days except give orders. Sometimes that was enough, but what about the times it wasn't?

Ronan was just plain impatient. He knew he wasn't very patient on normal occasions, and especially not during days like this. But, how could you be when your teammate, no your friend, was kidnapped, and then left, hurt and alone? He knew that he had had an almost constant glare ever since they had first noticed Rodney was gone. He felt responsible for every one of his teammates, and he, just like Sheppard, Teyla, and Rodney, hated seeing someone he cared about hurt or in need of help that could not be given.

Rodney looked up at them, his vision clearing slightly, and then looked over at the wall of the Jumper. He had been staring at it earlier, and they had all wondered what that was about, but hadn't given much thought to it considering he wasn't really himself right now.

"Rodney? Rodney, buddy, mind talking to us? Come on, you've never had any problem with opening that big mouth of yours before." Sheppard cracked, trying to ease the tension, or at least get a rise from McKay. Anything would be better than the distant, glassy look Rodney now worse. Carter through a slightly exasperated look his way, but he could see the thankful look in her eyes.

Rodney looked up, but that was it. He then looked back to the Jumper wall. Sheppard pursed his lips, annoyance starting to set in. He didn't like being ignored.

"Rodney. Rodney. Rodney. Rodney, if you don't answer me, I'm going to go straight down to your not-so-hidden stash of chocolate and instant coffee bags and throw them to your buddy, the whale." Sheppard threatened, annoyed, but also knowing that if anything would get a rise or response out of Rodney, that would.

Rodney looked up, slight confusion evident in his blue eyes. He lifted an eyebrow half-heartedly at John, before responding,

"If you do that, Sheppard, the only reason I'll have to get back there would be to throw _you _to my friend, the whale." He narrowed his eyes in anger, something that could make some of the bravest marines on base flinch away, but now only seemed broken and definitely not up to its usual level. Teyla relaxed slightly, her eyes still narrowed but the anger and worry not quite so pronounced, and leaned back. Jennifer, Carson, Radek, and Richard all sighed before leaning back. Ronan and Carter sighed as well, but much quieter.

"Rodney, how bad are you hurt?" Jennifer spoke up, her voice cracking at the beginning. But Rodney shook his head, looking over at the Jumper's wall before looking over and Radek and Sam.

"There's no time for that. I saw something when I…fell." Rodney said, looking a bit confused before the last word. Jennifer exchanged a look with Carson, an unsaid message passing between them. It was readable to everyone else, though. Rodney was getting worse—much worse.

"Well, what was it? A dancing sheep? A giant green elephant? I myself see clowns falling off buildings. But that's just me." Sheppard said, sarcasm light in his voice, but still evident. Rodney shot him a weird look.

"Have you gotten help for that? I'm not sure if it's really healthy." He said this only half-heartedly, and his voice was hoarse and quiet, but they made the occupants of the room smile. Those words were definitely what Rodney would say.

"No, this is important." Rodney's tone caught the attention of everyone there. "I saw a device on the Jumper. The connection must have messed up during the Jumpers…uh…trip. I'm pretty sure it's what's causing the disruption of the shields, and what's stopping you from detecting me. It also tends to turn things invisible. Can you guess what it is?" He quirked an eyebrow, glancing at Sam and Radek, both of whom were looking at each other, eyes wide. Sheppard cursed under his breath. They had kidnapped Rodney and the Jumper by making it invisible. Looking around the room, Sheppard saw that everyone else had come to the same conclusion.

Rodney nodded, satisfied. "Now, all I have to do is disconnect it, and then you can…" But he broke off, his brow furrowed. He didn't seem to know what he was saying.

"You just have to disconnect it and then we can find you, bring you home, and get you medical attention." Sheppard was shocked by Jennifer's calm, reassuring voice, but then he figured it was a givin'. She was a doctor, and out here doctors had to be able to be calm and reassuring when strange, unknown ailments overcame their patients.

"Right. That's all I have…to…do." Rodney said slowly, looking back at the Jumper wall, not looking happy at having to walk over there at all. He sighed deeply, and everyone in the room, especially SGA1, who had been with Rodney for a long time, saw the resolve take over Rodney.

He slowly got up, each movement obviously causing harm. Sheppard hated it. He hated having to watch Rodney under so much pain, especially when he was sitting there, perfectly healthy and safe in Atlantis.

Rodney drew a ragged breath each time he moved forward a little, his lips growing bluer and bluer by the minute from lack of oxygen. They could see Rodney drawing on every last ounce of energy in his hurt body.

Finally, he got there, to the wall, and sank down tiredly. He reached out a pail hand and clasped what looked like air.

Everyone watched in apprehension, ready to run to the sensors the moment Rodney said it was off.

It took only a quick glance to notice something was wrong. Despite the fact that Rodney was pulling as hard as he could at the only just barely visible device, it wouldn't come off.

Sheppard's brow furrowed in worry, an action mirrored by the majority of the room.

Rodney looked up at them, helplessness clear in his lighting blue eyes.

"It won't come off. I'm pretty sure it was broken, or at least impaired, during the fight here, and then that jump the Jumper decided to take must have broken it more. It just won't come off." He looked so distraught and tired.

Sheppard sighed before leaning back dejectedly. _Of course, _he thought, _when is it ever that simple?_

**A/N-Poor Rodney! And John, i'm really sorry that i couldn't make it easy, but that wouldn't be a very good book, now would it? Besides, you would probably be bored if it was always easy!**

**Well, anyway. Hope you liked it! If something is wrong, like a character or something, please tell me so i can fix it or not make the same mistake again. Umm, there was something in there about some Ancients leaving and having kids on another planet-I'm not sure if thats correct. I know that some Ancients could be considered the equivalent of "rebels" and that they might have left, but i'm not sure about the rest. But, it's crucial to the story, so we're just gonna pretend. **

**Please R&R! It makes me happy, and a happy me writes faster, eventually ending in you getting to read the next chapter faster! **


	4. When You Might Never Breathe Again

**A/N-Hey everyone! I'm so so so sorry about how long this took. I kind of got in a stump for a few days. I mean, i knew what i was gonna do, but i just didn't do it. Plus, I'm going on a homeschool field trip at the end of next week with a few other homeschool families, so i've had extra work besides school to do, you know, like research and stuff. **

**So, i'm really sorry about how long this took, and that it's kind of short. I hope you like it though. **

**Disclaimer-I'm sorry, but i still don't own Stargate:Atlantis, Stargate-SG1, MGM, and all that other stuff. Although, i do own the bad guys in this book that kidnapped poor Dr. McKay...**

He looked around helplessly. It just wasn't right. He finally found out, or at least was pretty sure, what was wrong, and then, he couldn't fix it because the darn thing wouldn't come off! He had been stabbed, his left leg was broken, his right wrist was most likely broken, and he, from what he could tell, had a concussion! It was pretty safe to say that the universe was out to get him

"What, can't take someone being as smart as me? Think I might be able to figure out all your little, stupid, life secrets? Afraid I might figure out how to live forever, or, better yet, create my own universe?" Rodney said out loud, trying to quell his nerves. He saw Col.'s Carter, Caldwell, and Sheppard, scientific, CIA, and medical Dr.'s Zelenka, Woolsey, Keller, and Beckett all look at him like he was crazy. He just lifted an eye brow and said,

"I have a concussion, I'm in a Jumper somewhere I'm not quite sure where, and the _stupid, little invisibility devise won't come off!_" He knew his voice was harsh and grating, but he really felt sick and dizzy, and just plain _tired. _He looked at the occupants of the briefing room and had to sigh. They all looked just as tired, if not more so, than he knew he looked. It was painful to see the worry, not at all hidden anymore, in their eyes.

He didn't know what to do. He kept going through different scenarios, and what would happen if he did this or that. But, they all ended in disaster. He really didn't feel like dying.

Back in the briefing room spirits were at an all time low. Times had been worse, but then there hadn't even been an idea until the last moment. Now, there had been an idea and a way to get Rodney home safe, but no, it didn't work. It wouldn't work until just the last moment before Rodney almost died of who-knew-what. It was just like that in the Pegasus Galaxy.

Ronan was drumming his fingers on the table repeatedly, his head bent forward, his brow and forehead furrowed in anger and impatience. He was getting annoyed with this. Why couldn't they just blow it up? Wouldn't that be easier?

Then Rodney could come home, Ronan could annoy him with one syllable words, and everything would be back to normal. This would just be something to laugh about, just like all of their injury inducing missions, or, in this case, kidnappings.

But that was not to be. Rodney was staring at the device, his eyes narrowed as though he thought he could get it off by giving it the death glare. It did work when he did it to the other scientists, after all.

Then, so suddenly that they all jumped slightly, Rodney toppled backward in a type of ball, looking so pale he might as well have been the moon.

"Rodney!" John stood up in front of Ronan, he himself just a second after the Colonel.

Rodney made no notion that he had heard them, staying rolled up in a ball. Carter was typing at her computer so quickly that to Ronan's tired eyes it looked like her fingers were going faster than light. He knew this wasn't possible, but he really wasn't thinking about that just then.

Carter looked over at Zelenka, her face impassive but her eyes filled with urgency. Radek looked at the computer before saying something in Czech that was most likely a curse. He practically jumped over to the Atlantian view screen and started to tap a few things on it before walking quickly back to Carter and talking to her.

Ronan listened to what they were saying, but found that it was way over his head. He considered himself to be kind of smart, or at least average for his people. There had been minor chemistry, biology, and other sciences on his planet, and he had graduated from their equivalent of college, so he thought he could understand at least a bit of what they said. But they were speaking so quickly that he was sure _no one_ _else_ could understand.

But, at that moment Ronan had never wanted to understand more. They were talking about Rodney, his teammate and friend, who was stuck and hurt, unable to receive help, and it was aggravating.

Suddenly, Carter jumped up so fast that she knocked her chair over, causing everyone to look at her, their eyes filled with confusion and worry. She didn't even notice. Sam walked over to the view screen with her computer, plugging it into a consol. She typed a few things, her fingers moving at a slower pace.

Dr. Woolsey lifted an eyebrow but said nothing. He was used to watching Dr. McKay go off to do strange things without telling anyone, just to come back with a great idea, or a way to save something. He was hoping the colonel was doing the same. But, after several minutes of her doing nothing but checking different scanners and things that Woolsey couldn't see, he started to get annoyed.

"Col. Carter, would you care to share with us what you're doing?" He asked politely, though the irritation in his voice was barely hidden. He was worried about the top scientist just as much as the others.

"I think…I might…maybe…I could be wrong…If I'm not…this is bad…Zelenka…right there…oh not good." Every one other than Zelenka blinked. What did that _mean_? Dr. Zelenka seemed to understand. Ronan opened his mouth to say something but hesitated. He had talked quite a bit in the last couple of hours. He couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow at that strange and completely random thought-he must be getting really tired. He opened his mouth to say something again, but he was diverted by Rodney moving.

"Rodney?" Apparently, Teyla had noticed as well, her eyes narrowed in concern and a bit of frustration. Rodney groaned loudly as he slowly moved into a sitting position, each bit of pain he received painted on his face like a picture.

Ronan had to wince slightly as he saw Rodney's eyes go wide and his hand move like lightning to the side that had been stabbed. He could tell it was bleeding through his shirt even more than it had been before. The wound must have opened again.

By now everyone's eyes were on the view screen, although Carter and Zelenka kept glancing back at their computers.

Rodney lifted a hand dizzily to his head, his eyes misted over in confusion and pain.

Jennifer and Carson were looking intently at the scientist as he continued to look around in confusion.

The occupants of the room were tense as they watched McKay slowly move over to the wall and rest his head and back on it. He closed his eyes and they could clearly see his breathing slow down.

Dr. Keller looked alarmed at this, her eyes going wide temporarily before she literally shouted,

"RODNEY! Wake up!" Rodney jerked awake as though someone had shaken him. He looked over at the view screen, his eyes still glassy, and then those aforementioned eyes narrowed slightly. This was clearly meant to be a "back off" signal, but its affect was reduced by his pale complexion, dark circled under his eyes, and the blood coming down from the two wounds in his head. No one 'backed off".

"Rodney, you have to stay awake. You have a concussion, and sleeping in your current condition, blood loss included, would be a very bad idea." Jennifer said slowly and clearly as though she was speaking to a toddler.

Rodney looked at her for a moment, his eyes void of any emotion. But then his eyes slowly seemed to go back to normal, or at least very close to normal. His usual wit and cleverness replaced the haziness and confusion, making him blink several times.

Jennifer sighed in relief. He had a concussion, that much they knew for sure, but the fact that he was able to shake off some of the side effects meant that it wasn't so bad that it was immediately fatal.

"Wha—happen'd?" Rodney asked wearily, still looking a little dozy.

"You just sort of f—fell unconscious." Sheppard replied, jumping a bit over the F, desperately wanting to say "fainted" but knowing that it wouldn't help anything. Although it might just make Ronan smile a bit…Nah, best not to do it.

Rodney sent him a scathing look. Apparently he hadn't bought the sudden word change. John just whistled a bit, trying to ease the tension. It worked a bit; he saw Rodney's shoulders relax slightly, and Carson lean back farther into his chair. He smiled slightly, content.

But Carter was far from relaxed. She looked up and around the room and then over to the view screen. Horror, worry, and pure despair were etched into her features.

Rodney was slowly moving to the seat behind the co-pilot's which was nearest to the device on the wall. He sat down heavily before looking up to the view screen, his expression quizzical when he saw Carter's face.

Sam sighed heavily, feeling her heart drop like stone to her stomach. She breathed in, preparing herself for what she was about to say. Saying it would make it real, official, and an actual problem. But not saying it would be an even greater problem.

"We've just been running a few simulations on your Jumper, McKay. If we're correct, that crash caused a lot more damage than we can see. I need you to go to the main control section." She spoke calmly, using the un-emotional voice she always used when explaining a crisis that she saw no immediate way of fixing.

Rodney looked up at them, his eyes so tired and life-less that the people in the room had to draw a breath. He looked like he could just fall apart right there and then. He just looked at them, particularly Carter, for a moment, his gaze screaming "Do I have to?"

But after Sam sent him a sad but firm look he stood up slowly and crossed the Jumper. The three foot long crossing seemed to be three miles long.

Finally after setting himself down in the grey chair he looked up expectantly at the colonel.

Carter sighed again before speaking.

"I need you to check the life support." She said shortly, her peripheral vision catching the looks she was receiving from various people in the room. Rodney looked startled at the request for a moment before his eyes suddenly widened and he started to tap the various consols around him. He looked up at the view screen, but they could tell he didn't really see them. He was probably looking at something from the Jumper.

Suddenly his face took on the same horror as Col. Carter's had. He then looked at the occupants of the room, his expression grave and desperate.

"Life support is failing. It's still working partially, but the systems will eventually shut down. I don't know when, but it won't be very long, and the air is just going to keep getting thinner and thinner." His voice was tinged with fear, his eyes filled with pain. He had already almost died in a Jumper, also alone then, and they could tell he really didn't feel like repeating the experience, especially if it went all the way through.

John gulped involuntarily. This couldn't be happening! Couldn't they just have _one _time of good luck? Was the universe really out to get them? It had been starting to look like it in the first year, but this was just ridiculous.

Rodney groaned as he sat back, his heart in his throat. How come they never had any luck? It was just one thing after another. Kidnapped, stabbed, getting a concussion, and then life-support decides to fail. What's with that?

His head was feeling worse by the moment, his side was numb but there were occasional bursts of pain, his wrist hurt like crazy, it was getting harder to breath, and his leg felt like lead, which it might actually be.

He had been so hopeful. I'll get to get out! He had thought. But no, the stupid device wouldn't come off, and life-support was failing! Of course, he should have seen this coming.

If they didn't find him soon, he would die from lack of oxygen, and his body might never be found. _Then everyone would morn for me, and they would all be sorry they hadn't listened to me each time I had said I wasn't felling good, and they would all recognize what a hero I was, _he thought. _Wow, I'm morbid. _

He looked up at the view screen and momentarily caught Jennifer's eye. She looked so afraid, so worried, that he actually had to stop himself from flinching. _No, I'm not going to die. I always come up with something. I'll be fine. If not for me, than for them. _

He looked over at the device. There was absolutely nothing he could think to do to it that wouldn't end in: A) a giant whole in the side of the Jumper, B) nothing, C) a wave of energy hitting essential systems on the Jumper causing them to brake, or D) a wave of energy hitting essential systems on the Jumper causing the Jumper to blow up.

Needless to say, he didn't really like any of these options. He breathed in deeply, trying to quell his growing anxiety. Unfortunately, his anxiety continued to grow.

Dr. Woolsey, Jennifer, Carson, John, Teyla, and Ronan watched from a corner of the lab as Carter, Zelenka, and several scientist ran around running simulations, looking at results, comparing results, and then either throwing those results out the window or putting them on hold to compare with other results.

They had been running around for the better part of a half hour. Even thought that half hour wasn't so long, they were really hurrying because they knew that Rodney now had a definite timeline.

John tapped his foot impatiently. Normally he would be going over to talk to McKay to see what the self-proclaimed smartest man in two galaxies thought of things and what he planned to do about it. But, Rodney was far too weak and out of it to be able to do much. John hadn't lost all hope, thought. He was still hoping that Rodney would come up with one minute brilliance and have a plan. By just looking at the others in the little corner of the lab, the colonel knew that they were hoping the same thing.

John really couldn't see any way out of this.

That annoyed him.

"John, what are they doing?" He turned quickly to find Teyla looking at him quizzically.

"Looking for a way to get McKay out." He replied.

"They will get him out, John." John shifted uncomfortably. Teyla had always been able to read through him.

"I know they will. I never said they wouldn't. It's _when_ that I'm worried about."

"Rodney will stay alive, if not for himself than for us. It is what he does." Teyla's voice was calm and sure, but Sheppard hadn't spent the last five years with her and learned nothing. She was worried as well.

"I bet he would do it just to annoy us." John joked lightly, and was rewarded by a smile from Teyla, Jennifer, and even a small one from Ronan—the later two had been listening in.

"Rodney would do that." Ronan said gruffly, nodding.

"Plus, I don't think he would like that some weird native who barely fixed that device with duck tape got the best of him. He would do everything possible to stop that from happening." John replied, knowing Rodney was probably angry that someone had been so stupid as to try to fix it like that.

"He'll probably yell at them for finding it first, too." Jennifer cut in, a slight smile tugging at her lips.

John was about to reply when Sam came jogging over to them, her eyes lit up, not in a good way, but not in a bad way either-more neutral actually. John felt himself tense up in anticipation. This could be it. It could go either way. They could have figured out a way to save McKay, or something that means they never will…

Sam stopped in front of them. Her face was emotionless, but her eyes showed hope. John would have felt relieved at this had the worry and dread not also been in Sam's face.

"We may have a way to find Rodney. But, it might not work." The scientist colonel said slowly and carefully, obviously trying to not raise their hopes.

It didn't do anything of the sort. John felt Ronan, Teyla, and Jennifer all go tense behind him, tension radiating off of their bodies.

"What are you planning on doing?" Dr. Woolsey asked as stepped forward slightly. Carter just shook her head and, motioning for them to follow her, began to walk out of the lab.

John looked at the group around him and just shrugged before following the colonel.

Carter muttered under her breath as she waited for Rodney to respond to the call they had sent to him. She had known it would come down to this. She had known as soon as she had seen the problem with the life-support systems. There was no other way to do it. But, she had gone down to the science labs and had worked with the other scientists, trying to find a solution that didn't have as many risks, or had at least been done on some magnitude before.

But to no avail. Over half an hour, and they had only one idea. Given more time, they _might, _seriously stressing the might,be able to come up with something, but they didn't have that kind of time.

She had seen Rodney's face. He had come to the same conclusion as she had. She had seen it in his eyes. He would rather be able to die quickly rather than slowly. But, still, she desperately wished there was another way to do it. A way that didn't have as many variables and problems. But then, luck has rarely just been on their side, so why would it be now?

She shook away that thought. Luck had been on their side. They wouldn't be alive if it hadn't been. It just needed to be on their side from the begin—wait, beginning had passed a long time ago, so maybe the _middle_ would work.

Finally, Rodney's pail, tired, bloody face came up on screen. He looked even worse than he had before—Carter almost gasped at the sight. Looking over at the other people in the room, she could tell that they all felt the same. They needed to get him out of there.

Rodney briefly put his head in his hand, his eyes spinning with dizziness, before looking up again, a questioning look on his ragged features.

"So, what's up?" He asked, his voice thready and quiet. Sam cleared her throat before answering,

"We think we may have a way to get you out." She said, trying to keep her voice from trembling at what she was about to suggest. But she stopped when Rodney smiled at her, hope alive in his eyes. She was actually slightly taken aback.

"Other than the way we already know could get me out?" He asked, his hope tinged voice ringing through the suddenly very still, quiet room. Every head turned to Sam. Said person looked down, her eyes filled with sadness. She looked up at Rodney, their eyes locking for a few moments. Rodney sighed; he knew what she was about to say before she had even said it. His eyes lost that little bit of unfounded hope, becoming duller than Carter had ever seen them.

"Yeah. I hoped it wouldn't come to that. My illogical side did, I mean. It really is the only logical option, isn't it?" His voice had raised an octave as it often did when he was worried or high on adrenaline. Sam swallowed again and nodded.

John looked at the three scientists, his lips pierced. He was really getting annoyed with the riddles.

"Okay, what are you talking about?" His voice was gruff, his eyes narrowed slightly. Sam looked up slightly surprised. She had forgotten they, the others, were there. She turned to look around the room, stopping at John.

"We may have a plan to get Rodney out…"She said.

"Why do I get the impression that there's a "but" in there?"

"Because there is. And if I don't like it, I don't think any of you will. There are just too many risks." She swallowed.

John waited for her to continue. She didn't.

"And…What is it and what are the risks?"

She looked around again, her eyes tinged with worry and sadness.

"We've been looking at the schematics of the Jumper, and we've found out that the place where the device is on is directly over one of the, well, circuits of the Jumper's shield. When the device was damaged, we think that its connection with the Jumper was also damaged, damaging the circuits as well, causing problems with the shield. We think that there may be a way to send a directed energy pulse through the circuits to hit the device, shutting it off." She said, stopping as though there was more.

John didn't see any problem with the plan, but Col. Caldwell, who, being the captain of the Dedaulus, read reports about circuits and such thought he knew the problem.

"And, what's the problem?" John asked before Caldwell could say anything.

Carter leaned forward, putting her hands on the table.

"The device is farther up along the circuit lines than the main shield area." She started, but stopped. Several different expressions flew across her face, but John was pretty sure he understood what they meant. She didn't know how to explain what was happening. Finally, Carter seemed to decide she could explain it.

"Imagine a pipe line. One long pipe that leads directly to, umm, a bucket that can't overflow, i mean, it could, but it would be bad, okay? But, right in front of the drop off for the pipe is another one leading off in another direction. Which way would the water go?" She asked.

"It would travel down the one in front of the main pipe." John said, deciding to humor her.

"Exactly, but eventually the rest of the water would overwhelm the pipe and would go on in a rush to the main pipe. It's the same with this. We want to send an energy pulse to overwhelm the device, affectively blowing it out. But, what we're worried about is that then we won't be able to turn off the energy pulse, and it would keep going and over load the shield, umm, area, and that would be bad." She finished, wincing.

"How bad?" Dr. Woolsey asked, his eyes slightly more than slightly concerned.

Zelenka and Sam looked at each other, and then at McKay who was looking on sickly. Zelenka decided to answer.

"Well, to put it simply, it would go "boom"." He said, his hands gesturing and explosion.

Everyone looked at each other; each seeing in the other's face what was in their own: A boom would be bad.

**A/N-Hmm, i bet the boom would _look _nice. I feel so bad for everyone. They haven't slept for like three days. So, here's another twist. **

**For next time-Will their plan work? Will the Jumper Explode? Will McKay survive? Will he ever get out? And if he does get out of there before it's too late, will he survive with the injuries he has sustained? And who kidnapped Rodney? Why did they fight? You'll just have to wait and see. **

**Thank-you, and please, please,please review! It makes me very happy and slightly mollyfied. Is that how you spell that? **


	5. When You Might Fix The Jumpers, Or Not

**A/N-Hey Everyone! So, here's the next chapter! I hope you like it! Oh, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to post the next one, because I'm going on a Homeschool Field Trip with some other homeschool families, and we'll be gone for about four days. But, I will try to write as much as possible. I hope you like this chapter, though!**

**Disclaimer-I'm really sorry, since i have to repeat this you obviously want me to own this all, but i really don't.**

It was just plain silly, but he really did just want to laugh. It was incredibly random, he knew, but he just really, _really _wanted to laugh. There was no reason to, he knew. There was no joke, there was no funny thing taking place, there wasn't even a smudge of dirt on anyone's nose. So, he really wasn't sure what brought on the very sudden, very random, very strange urge to laugh.

It was strong enough that he actually did laugh. And then everyone stared at him. But he just couldn't stop laughing. It was hilarious. It really, really was. And it was horrible. It really, really was.

The way to get him out was also the thing that might just kill him. And he found it hilarious. Of course, he was pretty sure he had a concussion, which might be part of the reason he found such a dry, morbid humor in it all, but it really was just plain funny.

John blinked. And then he blinked again. Why, why in all things sane and good, was Rodney _laughing? _

He looked around the room at the others gathered there. Caldwell's eyes had gone big, and he looked torn between pity, worry, and bemusement. Jennifer and Carson just looked plain worried and horrified. Sam, Zelenka, and Teyla seemed to share their sentiment, Teyla not even hiding her emotions anymore. Ronan's eyes had gone big, but his face was otherwise unreadable. Dr. Woolsey, well, Richard looked like he was looking for a way _out. _

John knew his face must have looked like a strange mix of everyone else's. But, at the same time, he could see what would be so morbidly humorous about the horrible situation they found themselves in. But, since he was the one that would go on living when, _if, John, if, _Rodney died, he found it more horrifying than funny.

Then as suddenly as he had started, Rodney stopped laughing. He looked up with a desperate and sad, but resolute look on his face.

"Alright, since we obviously have no other options, let's get this over with." He said.

Carter and Zelenka both sighed but nodded and started getting to work, Rodney doing whatever was needed on his side, wincing whenever anything hit his wrist.

John knew that he couldn't have been as badly hurt as Rodney said he was, but he knew that it probably still hurt like crazy.

He sighed again before leaning back in his chair and running his right hand through his dark unruly hair.

There was nothing to do but wait.

Zelenka cursed in Czech so no one else would understand. But, he was pretty sure they all got it anyway. This was ridiculous. They needed more time to figure something out. They could be killing him rather than saving him. They just needed more time. Time they didn't have.

Rodney would be dead from the lack of oxygen in just a few hours, possibly before that with the concussion and hypoglycemia.

He cursed again. This was a very bad idea. But, he knew there was no other option. Rodney needed to get out sooner rather than later.

"Alright, I think I'm ready." Rodney said, making the Czech jump. He had forgotten that Rodney could see them and them him for a moment.

He turned to the Ancient view screen. He drew a quick breath. He knew Rodney would be okay if they could get him out, or at least that was what Jennifer and Carson thought, and he trusted them both. But, he just _looked _really bad. _Wonder how he must feel? _He thought.

"I think we've got it all ready on our side. There is a medical team, SGA-1, and Lorne's team standing by, ready to go as soon as we can find your Jumper." Carter said, making Radek jump again. He really needed to pay attention to the movements of those around him. He had thought that the scientist colonel was on the _other _side of the room.

Rodney just nodded.

Zelenka turned and caught Sam's eye for a moment. She gave him a small, tight, yet slightly hopeful smile. He returned it.

"Alright, power up Rodney." Zelenka crossed his fingers, his action being mirrored by the collection of people in the room, as Carter spoke to Rodney.

He desperately hoped this would work.

Rodney entered a few commands into the Jumper that would cause a large power build up in a consol just in front of the circuit that had both the device and the Jumper's shield on it.

Rodney had closed off the consol from the rest of the Jumper completely, and he would only open it up to that one circuit when he deemed the amount of power build up enough.

Then the power would travel down the circuit and hit the device, burning out the power source. This was the difficult part. Okay, the setting up of the consol had been kind of hard, but to a resident genius it was nothing. He would have to be incredibly careful to "trap" (as John had called it) the energy in the consol again right after the device was burned out and right before the energy traveling down the circuit was forced to go down the circuit to the shield because it no longer had anywhere to go.

This would be the key point. If he waited even a tenth of a millisecond too long or not long enough, the least that would happen was that it wouldn't work and the consol they were using would be burned out (that would be bad since it was the only consol that was in the right place for this to work).

The worse that could happen was debatable. The worse was either the Jumper exploding, or a major build up in the shield consol that would draw power from all other systems, including life-support, and _then, _most likely _after _Rodney had died of oxygen deprivation, the Jumper would explode.

John and Rodney were in disagreement over which was worse. Rodney said he would rather die a quick and relatively painless death. John, however, preferred the second one because it gave them a chance, albeit small one, to find Rodney and get him out before he died of either lack of oxygen or exploding.

They had had a glaring match that would have gone on for hours had Dr. Woolsey and Carter not stopped them. Although almost everyone in the room agreed with John. They would much rather have a chance to find him, no matter how small.

But they could all see in his eyes what he hid behind lies of self-preservation or whatever his excuse had been. He didn't want them to get there right as the explosion took place. Or, worse yet, he didn't want them to get there when he was already dead. He would rather they didn't see that. Or die, really.

However, after Carter had called them up on how utterly _ridiculous _fighting over which was the better way to day was, they had sheepishly looked away. They flat out refused to apologize to each other though, no matter how many death glares they were getting from the three women in the room.

Women without chocolate and/or sleep for a certain amount of time were scary.

Rodney sat back against the pilot's seat for a moment, his head spinning slightly. Though he would never admit it, he had been exaggerating slightly about his leg and side wound. As for his head wound, he was pretty sure he hadn't said enough. Every single movement sent waves of dizziness through his head, some movements making him have to stop for a moment and catch his ever evading breath. This was one of those movements.

He lifted himself up from the chair mostly using his right leg and arm. He moved over to the seat behind the co-pilot's seat and gingerly sat down, the bottom half of his leg hurting so much he thought it might just fall off.

Huh, what would he do with only a leg and a half…_Okay, no more of that, because now it's just creepy. _He shook his head. _You'd think by now Sheppard would have worn off on me. Or maybe he did…I wonder what's up in that messed up, flyboy head of his…Anyway, don't I have something I'm supposed to do?_

He shook himself out of his strange (_It must be the concussion. I really need to stop getting those, it's messing with my amazing brain) _thoughts and started keying in a few more commands on the consol behind the seat.

He looked up at the Ancient View Screen and saw that everyone was looking at him. He really didn't like them all seeing him like this. He knew he looked worse than he was, which probably scared them half to death, and possibly a bit more for the two doctors. He turned away gingerly for a moment before looking back.

"I'm ready t-t-t—" He stopped and coughed for a few moments, getting worried looks from everyone before continuing on with what he had been saying. "I'm ready to initiate the energy build up." He finished his commands mentally after receiving a nod from Carter, Zelenka, and Dr. Woolsey.

For the next few minutes (3.752 to be exact) he kept his eyes trained on the readings he was receiving on the energy build up instead of looking up at the View Screen, knowing he would find only hopeful, no matter how well hidden, eyes and faces. He couldn't face that, not then. It would just be too hard. Especially since he knew they would find the same shameless, unfounded hope in his own face and oh-too-emotional eyes.

He breathed in again, making his bruised ribs hurt slightly, before making the release command. He kept close watch on the readings he had configured to be sent to the other consol in front of him, while keeping a second eye on the device, just in case.

He watched as though in slow motion as the readings were fed back to him. He watched the energy pulse travel down through the circuit. He thought briefly about how much work it would take to fix the jumper if they could save it first. He watched the energy pulse take the "bait" (Ronan actually called it that) and followed the first "pipe" (That was Sam) and channeled into the device. He watched the device overload, and, despite his pessimism (kept to himself) he found himself hoping that it would actually work. Then, so suddenly that Rodney almost jumped despite himself; the device popped off and fell to the ground of the Jumper with a loud "plop". His mouth hung open for a moment, and then he heard the excited "yay!" from the people in the briefing room. He smiled brightly and started to turn to the others, but then he remembered about this crucial moment and stopped himself.

How could he be so stupid as to actually try to turn around _now_? He wondered to himself.

He started keying in the commands, both physically and mentally. He willed his gene to be stronger, more powerful, so that it would work faster. He saw the "doors" (he couldn't actually remember who called it that) close around the consol, trapping the still building energy inside it.

He started to lift his hands in joy, but then stopped. It hadn't worked. Some, not a lot but still enough, energy had traveled into the shield console. He was too late. Even though it wasn't a lot, the energy would start to burn out some of the crystals in the shield console, and then the console would start to gather energy from other sections of the ship.

It would be a slow death, he knew. If the ship was going to explode immediately, it already would have. But it wasn't going to. How come he couldn't have been right this time?

John smiled brightly at those clustered around the table, each person with a smile of his/her own. It had worked. They had all seen the device come off and fall to the bottom of the Jumper with a loud "plop".

But John's smile had quickly disappeared when he saw Rodney's hands raise half way and then fall. He started to tap a few things into the console and then he looked over at the device. John could tell just by seeing those few movements that something was seriously wrong.

"Rodney, what happened?" He asked loudly, trying to alert the others to the obvious problem.

Every head turned back to the View Screen, and they all lost their smiles when they saw Rodney's dejected face after he had turned their way.

"Rodney?" Carter asked, her previously happy face washed in worry and frustration.

"I-I didn't make the command soon enough. Some of the power, not a lot but some, got through to the shield console." He voice was raspy and quiet. Carter and Zelenka shared a horrified look.

"So, it was just a little bit of power, right?" John asked, knowing his voice was filled with false hope. He understood from the earlier explanation that that was bad.

"Yes, but it was enough," It scared John that Rodney's voice had none of its usual bit now.

"So, quick death or slow?" John said jokingly, his voice completely serious and deadpanned.

"If it was a quick death I would already be dead. It'll be a slow one." Rodney replied, not looking anyone in the eye.

John wasted no time in getting up, quickly followed by Teyla, Ronan, Col.'s Caldwell and Carter, Dr. Zelenka, and Major Lorne who had joined them earlier. He motioned to the two medical doctors to follow him.

"What are you doing?" Dr. McKay asked, having looked up when he heard the chairs squeak.

"Well, if we're going to find you before you…die…or explode…we need to go now." John hated how hard it was to say that out loud, or in his head for that matter, but he accepted that it could be no other way.

He left before he could get any objection from the ever-stubborn Meredith Rodney McKay, although he could hear the objections all the way into the 'Gate control room.

Zelenka ran into the control room very quickly, making his legs hurt from stiff muscles. He didn't care. The sensors were working. He could tell as soon as he stepped out of the briefing room and into the Gate Control room. The faces of every scientist and several of the on-duty marines were lit up like a Christmas tree. This was a good sign.

"Report." Dr. Woolsey said sharply, relief flooding into his voice despite the bite.

"The scanners are working now, sir. Well, they were working before, but now we're picking up an energy signal. We're scanning the planet, Atlantis, and the surrounding area to see where it is." Chuck, the technician, said, his voice giddy.

"So, we're sure he's somewhere around this planet?" Caldwell asked.

"Sir, now we're _positive_ he's on the planet." Chuck said, his voice never losing any of its enthusiasm.

"Okay, okay, okay, just a little bit longer." Chuck continued to press buttons on both the Ancient Control Panel and on his computer, Zelenka watching and helping from over the brunette's shoulder.

"We've got him. I think." Chuck practically yelled, and then added the "I think" in a much more unsure voice. John looked at him, annoyed.

"What do you mean, you think? How many other people stuck in Jumpers do you know about? Did I miss a memo, or something? Is today "everyone get kidnapped and locked in a Jumper" Day? Seriously—" He stopped suddenly as he saw the confused and slightly affronted look on Chuck's face. John swallowed.

Zelenka felt bad for him. He knew that John was used to talking to McKay like that, and McKay would always respond with his own quick witted reply, and then they would go on until either something bad happened or someone yelled at them to stop.

John looked slightly like a lost puppy for a moment. Then his fake cover of nonchalance came back. But everyone could feel the tension radiating off of him, and they could see in his eyes how worried he was.

"Look, Colonel, these readings are very…strange. But I think…Hey!" Zelenka was by Chuck before anyone could say rychly (Which means fast in Czech, by the way). Zelenka's eyes grew wide before he turned to the congregation which consisted of SGA-1, Lorne's team, Jennifer, Carson, and one other medic.

"We've found him. He's here, in Atlantis." He was clearly going to say more, but John suddenly cursed quite loudly, an act which was quickly followed by several others. Right there. In Atlantis. The whole time. Seriously?

"But, we couldn't pick him up because of the shield problem aided by the fact that he is under the water." If the doctor didn't have everyone's attention before, he certainly did now.

"He is in that under water port that SGA-1 found a while back. Except, he isn't in the part that we normally monitor. From what I can gather, McKay's kidnappers must have been underwater when the…fight…or whatever that was happened. So, they pulled up to the closest secure place they could find. It's one of the farther ports of the underwater area. It is at the very edge. From what the scanners say, he is literally on the edge. As in, the Jumper is leaning off and will most likely fall either before or during the explosion. Neither you nor Rodney will want to be anywhere near there when it happens." Radek was speaking so fast it was almost impossible to understand him. But everyone was also listening very fast, so they actually could. Not that they would under any other circumstances.

"Okay, so we'll beam him out with the Dedaulus's transporter beams." Col. Caldwell said. Zelenka sighed in a way that was disturbingly familiar to Rodney's sigh. Zelenka looked slightly confused and affronted—he had obviously realized just that.

"No. There is much interference from the buildup of energy in the Jumper, not to mention the water is messing with it. It is quite far down. You will have to go down in a Jumper and retrieve him manually." Radek said. John started to hurry forward, but Radek stopped him.

"Listen, Colonel. Rodney has little time. You need to be fast, that we all know. But you also need to be careful. Any bit of jostling could make the Jumper fall over, which, in itself is very bad for Rodney would most likely fall as well. But what would be worse is that the Jumper is very sensitive right now, and if you jostle it even a little bit, or if it falls, it could trigger an early explosion. As I said earlier—everything would go boom."

John clenched his teeth, nodded, and motioned for the others to follow him. He caught Woolsey's eye. He nodded at the other man, a silent reassurance between two leaders. He would get Rodney back.

**A/N-OOOH! Cliff hanger! Sweet! Well, i'll try to write as much as I can, and I'll try to make it as exciting as possible. Bye everyone, and Enjoy! (and review, please!) **


	6. When You Smell Fruit And Explosions

**A/N-I'm BACK! Hey everyone! I am sooo, sooooo, sooooooo sorry for how long this took. I have this whole list of explenations, like going on a homeschool field trip, getting sick after I came back, having a lot of school...Anyway, I don't like making people wait, so, sorry, again. So, here's the next chapter, and it's a good one, I think. If there are any problems, or characters not being in character, or problems with, like, any medical stuff in it, please tell me, because I really would like to know any way to improve my story. Enjoy!**

_I am okay. I am okay. I am okay. I am okay_. He was pretty sure that if he repeated it enough times, he would start to believe it. At least, that was what people said. So far, it wasn't working. But, repeating other things, like _wide open space, _and _they know I'm here, _helped.

All he had to do was wait. And hope. And wait. Yes, waiting would be good. But hoping was nice too. Oh, and stay alive. And keep breathing. Breathing was nice. And try to stay awake. Yes, staying awake might help with the whole getting out part. And figure out a safe way to get out of the Jumper without it falling over the side and exploding. So, basically, all he had to do was wait, hope, stay alive, keep breathing, stay awake, and try to figure out a safe way to get out of the Jumper without it falling over the side. And then exploding. Hmm, that shouldn't be too hard. Really. It shouldn't.

He breathed in, or, at least, he tried to. He felt so tired. He had a massive headache, his hands wouldn't stop trembling, he felt cold, and his mind couldn't stay on one topic for very long. He hadn't eaten in hours. It was going to get bad very soon.

_Stop, McKay, you're hyperventilating. _He mentally smacked himself. He wasn't hurt _that _bad. He was just over reacting and hyperventilating. He needed to stop that. Really, it's not like this was that hard. He would be out of there soon. Very soon.

"Okay, Zelenka, where are we?" John asked.

Zelenka turned to look at him from one of the consoles he was monitoring. He really hated flying in the Jumpers, but at the last moment he decided that if anything went wrong, such as them not being able to open the Jumper doors for Rodney, he was the most qualified to help.

"We are approaching the platform next to the one that Rodney's Jumper is on. I suggest we proceed with caution. If we land wrong, or hit the platform too hard, Rodney's Jumper could lose any stability it still has and fall over the side." Zelenka really didn't want to alarm the assembled people any more than he already had, but he really needed them to know all the risks so they were as careful as possible.

Zelenka swallowed again as in his mind he saw the Jumper falling of the platform, heavier than the water that surrounded it, and exploded with Rodney in it. It was a very depressing thought that he really wanted to stop thinking. But, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't, because he knew that the possibility was all too real.

"…Zelenka?" He was pulled back into the present reality as he realized that John had been calling him for some time.

"Yes, colonel, sorry I was, uh, just thinking." Carson, who was sitting across from him and behind the colonel, gave him a knowing look. Radek really didn't want that knowing look right then. He turned back to the console. Thus ended _that _silent conversation. And good riddance, too.

Dr. Woolsey put his hands on the cold metal of the Control Room balcony. He knew that he probably looked slightly brood-ish, but, in his personal opinion, that was better than pacing back and forth in his office, or out in the Control Room.

It was worrying, really, the amount of bad luck that the alpha team seemed to have. It was also slightly humorous, in a broken, horrible way. Of course, if you thought about their _immensely _bad luck, you also had to wonder how in the _universe _they had managed to survive.

Then you had to think about their amazingly _good _luck, as well. He wasn't quite sure that the good leveled up to the bad, though. It seemed that _first _they had to have incredibly bad luck and _then _they would have just enough good luck to save their figurative something or another and not so figurative lives. Or something along those lines.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm the queasiness he was feeling. It didn't help.

There was the Jumper. They could tell just from looking at it that it was pretty bruised and dented. It actually looked kind of sad, especially to John who happened to really like the Puddle Jumpers.

There were dents in the hull of the Jumper, and the front view screen was covered in what looked like oil, though John had no idea where _that _came from.

They were coming in from underneath the Jumper. It was in one of the areas of the platform that was not full of water. All John had to do was get his Jumper through the Jumper sized hole in the, well, floor, and then he could fly over to it. The other Jumper was right next to a larger hole, which seemed to be for some larger type of ship, perhaps a submarine. Actually, the more accurate thing to say would be that the Jumper was half way _in _the hole. They had to be extremely careful that it did not fall through, or they would all be blown to smithereens.

John eased up through the hole before setting down carefully. He held his breath. Nothing happened. He sighed in relief. Turning back to Zelenka and the others, he nodded. Teyla nodded back before motioning to the other marines and Ronan. They had brought Major Lorne's team along just in case the people who had kidnapped Rodney were still there.

John grabbed his gun tightly between his hands, safety off, and walked out of his Jumper and towards Rodney's. It was dark, the only light coming from their P-90's. Debris littered the floor, making it hard for them to walk without kicking something.

Teyla was directly behind him, Ronan level with him but a few feet away, and Lorne's team was spread out. Everyone was walking very carefully, lest they accidently hit some of the debris.

They made it to the Jumper with the only excitement being when one of Lorne's men, Abram Carlston, accidently kicked a piece of debris. He had kicked it pretty hard, but it had been far enough away from Rodney's Jumper to not really matter.

John stopped in front of the Jumper. He waved his hands over the opening controls. Nothing happened. They had been afraid of this. He turned around and beckoned to Radek, who had followed behind Lorne's team.

Zelenka walked up quickly, pulling out his portable computer as he walked. Zelenka opened the door's control crystal panel. He took one look at it, clicked his tongue, and set to work.

John tapped his foot on the ground impatiently. They were at the Jumper, but they couldn't get in. It was quite disconcerting. And annoying.

Radek looked up briefly and apologetically at Sheppard before looking back at his computer.

"And…There." Zelenka said.

The doors opened slowly, almost hesitantly. It was dark in the Jumper, but it lit up as soon as John thought on the lights. His eyes grew at what he saw.

On the floor was a woman. She looked to be between her late twenties and early thirties. She was wearing a brown leather, short-sleeved tunic and darker brown leather capris. Her hair was long and dark brown, while her skin was a light tan. The woman had blood on her tunic and capris, as well as matted in her hair and on her face. John couldn't tell whether the blood was hers or someone else's, or somewhere in between. John was pretty sure she was hostile, though, since she had some type of a gun in her right hand and a very large knife in her left which was also covered in blood. She was unconscious, but breathing.

John kicked the knife away from her hand, while Ronan kicked away the gun and picked it up. John looked quizzically at the large Satedan.

"It looks like a good gun." Ronan said, shrugging his shoulders slightly.

John shook his head before walking up to the closed doors between the front and back of the Jumper.

"Radek, open it." He commanded. He motioned to Lorne and his team to take the girl to the other Jumper. Lorne nodded and turned to his people.

Radek practically ran the three steps it took to get from the opening of the Jumper to where John was.

Zelenka quickly plunged his computer into the doors control crystals and started to tinker with them.

Rodney could have sworn he smelled strawberries. But, they had citrus. Or at least he thought they did. And why would there be strawberries in the Jumper?

Rodney looked over at the door. He could hear voices on the other side. The only problem with that was that he didn't know who the voices belonged to. Normally he could tell the difference between voices quite easily, but, unfortunately, he was slightly dehydrated and was trying to listen through a very, _very _thick wall of metal.

He shook his head. He was hypoglycemic. And the head wound wasn't really helping much. But neither was the knife wound.

What was that? Oh, never mind, just the blinking of the console.

He was pretty sure it was his people, though. It was the most logical explanation.

Ooh, more blinking lights.

Unless, the people who kidnapped him came back, and decided to finish him off. Or, better yet, they want to kidnap him again.

That would be bad.

"Alright, I am going to attempt to open it now." Zelenka said, looking up at John for his approval. John nodded. Zelenka looked back at his computer and clicked a few more buttons. The doors opened.

Rodney looked up as the doors opened. He blinked at the light that came through, which temporarily blinded him.

Suddenly he felt hands on his back and arms, and someone trying to lift him up. He opened his eyes slightly and saw John's smiling face looking at him. Teyla was next to the colonel, worry and relief in her honey brown eyes. Rodney smiled slightly at them before looking back at the blinking consoles. He tried to talk to them, telling them that blinking consoles was bad, very bad, but he started coughing as soon as he opened his mouth.

He felt some hard pats on his back, most likely from John, and a cool hand on his neck, probably Teyla's.

He felt pretty sick and tired and nauseous. He knew it was from the hypoglycemia, since he hadn't eaten in hours. It made him feel far worse than he should have.

And the console was still blinking.

"Hey buddy. It's alright. We've got Jennifer and Carson over in the other Jumper. We'll get you out of here and you'll be all patched up before you know it." He heard John's voice, but he didn't really hear it. It was like John was on the other side of the roof of a really high building while the wind was going one million miles per hour and John was whispering. It was a very strange sensation.

"…He's going into hypoglycemic shock. We need to get nutrients into his system, now!" He could hear Jennifer. It sounded like she had been talking for a while. He had blinked out. That was a bad sign.

He looked around, his eyes half closed. There weren't any blinking consoles here. That was good. But, where had the other blinking console gone?

Rodney had a fleeting image of the consol picking up its pink, flowery apron (where did it get that?) by its two metal prong-type things and running off on tiny legs.

He tried to laugh but found that there was a plastic dome on his nose and mouth. Wait, no, it was an oxygen mask. Not a dome. But it did look like one. He wondered briefly whether he should be worried that he knew that it was an oxygen mask just by the way it felt. He decided not to worry about it.

Blinking console, where are you?

"…Consol…Blinking-not good." They couldn't hear Rodney very well through the oxygen mask on his mouth, but what little they could hear didn't make much sense.

"What console?" Ronan asked, his arms crossed, a slightly confused glare on his face.

"I don't know. But he's going into hypoglycemic shock. One of the symptoms of hypoglycemia is confusion. He's probably confused." Jennifer replied, her eyes never leaving the knife wound on Rodney's side.

She sighed in relief, a tight smile on her face.

"What is it, doc?" John asked, his hand still on Rodney's shoulder. He hadn't taken it off since he first put it on in the other Jumper.

"His knife wound isn't as bad as Rodney said it was. The numbness, from what I can tell, is caused by a type of poison, -"

"And how is that any better than we thought or Rodney said?" John demanded, his eyes narrowed.

Jennifer looked up at him, her eyes also narrowed.

"I was getting to that, colonel." She said, practically spitting out the colonel. John backed down, figuratively, even looking a bit sheepish.

They were both extremely tired and very worried. A fight was eminent.

"Like dear Jennifer here was saying, the knife was poisoned from what we can tell, but the rest of the wound isn't as bad as it looked. The knife went up at an angle, so the attacker was probably on the ground, or kneeling while Rodney was standing. From what we can tell without a proper MRI, the wound hasn't hit any major arteries, and it's missed all of the organs. His lower right rib is broken, and the one above it might be as well. He definitely has some muscle damage, but we can't really tell anything for certain until we get him back to the infirmary." Beckett cut in, stopping any further arguments.

"The poison was not very lethal. Of course, it would be lethal if left un-treated, which is what we're worried about. It has started to spread. But," He saw the looks on John and his team's faces, "We don't think it's that bad yet. We'll have to make sure he's stable before we start moving a lot. It will only take a moment though, lad."

While they were having this nice little chat, the nurse they had brought along and Jennifer, half an ear in the conversation, was starting an IV, checking the head wounds, removing the very crude yet affective dressings on them, and trying to keep Rodney from either falling unconscious or trying to get up. He even tried to attack them once, obviously greatly confused.

"His head wounds, however, are a bit worse and that we know for certain. He has a concussion. It wasn't bad to start with, but it's been getting worse. We need to get him back to the Infirmary and treat it, immediately. He also has suffered major blood loss, and will need a transfusion or two."

Suddenly, Rodney jerked forward and then back, twitching in various areas of his body. Jennifer grabbed him, trying to hold him steady.

"He's convulsing." Jennifer said flatly. As Carson grabbed him by the shoulder and Ronan by the legs, Jennifer took out a light and opened one of Rodney's eyes. She shined the light in his eye, burrowed her forehead, and then did the same to the other eye.

"His pupils are unequal and erratic." Jennifer said, again in a flat voice, but this time with a slight tinge of worry etched in.

"What does that mean?" Ronan asked, still holding down Rodney. Then, Rodney stopped moving. Jennifer started to check his vitals as she answered.

"It means that his concussion is worse than we thought."

Rodney reached up a shaky hand and tugged off his oxygen mask. Jennifer tried to put it back on, but Rodney wouldn't let her.

"Rodney, you need that oxygen mask. You're not breathing very well." Jennifer said soothingly. Rodney shook his head slightly.

"No. Radek." He turned his head as though looking for Radek.

"Radek is in the other Jumper just checking over a few things. He'll be back in a second and then we'll leave." John spoke this time, trying to placate the scientist.

"No. No. Radek." Rodney shook his head violently and started to sit up. Jennifer and Carson tried to stop him, but he pushed them away firmly.

"The console—it was blinking. Not good. Strawberries. Do they have citrus in them? The console. We—have to get…out of here. Now." Rodney spoke haltingly, his voice confused during the strawberry parts, but a bit less shaky when he was talking about the console. John blinked. Strawberries?

"John." Rodney said, his voice hoarse. John looked up quickly and nodded at Rodney. "The console. Get out of here. Now. Get Radek…out of the...Strawberry." Rodney furrowed his brown. "Jumper. Out of the Jumper. Now."

Most would have dismissed what he said as hallucinations from the concussion and hypoglycemia, but something about how he said what he said, and the fact that he used John's first name, made John jump up from where he had been kneeling next to Rodney and storm out of the Jumper. Teyla followed quickly behind him.

"I do not understand, John. What does that mean?" John looked sideways at the Athosian.

"I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet Rodney wouldn't be so adamant to say it if it wasn't important." Teyla nodded at that.

"Radek!" The Czech scientist jumped as John spoke, and then looked around the Jumper as though he expected it to fall off the side of the hole right then.

"Y-yes, colonel?" Radek asked.

"Rodney said something about a blinking console, and from what I got out of his jumbled thoughts, it's bad." Zelenka furrowed his forehead before turning to a console. John looked at it and remembered that it was the shield power control station, A.K.A. the-bomb-that-they-might-have-just-accidently-created-that-could-go-off-at-any-moment.

Zelenka looked up quickly, his eyes filled with fear. He grabbed his computer which he had rested on the seat behind the co-pilot's seat and started to walk quickly out of the Jumper.

"What is it, Zelenka?" John asked, his voice harsh, as he and Teyla fell into step behind the scientist.

"Rodney must have seen it as we were taking him out." He seemed to be talking more to himself than to his two companions. He turned to look at John. "The power over-load happened a lot faster than we first, uh, thought."

"And what does that mean?" Teyla asked, looked back at the Jumper.

"It means, if we don't get out of here quickly, it won't matter if we're careful about the Jumper falling over the side, because it will blow up anyway." Radek said, wringing his hands as the trio practically jumped into the other Jumper. John looked over at Rodney whose eyes were open but unseeing. John breathed in, trying to calm his feeling of impending doom.

Then the scientist's words registered. He turned on the Czech so fast he could practically hear the wind whipping around him, though there wasn't a breeze of _any _sort.

"Now?" John hissed, as though he was afraid speaking normally would be bad.

"No colonel, there is still plenty of time to get out of here." Radek reassured him.

They jumped into the Jumper. John dropped his gun next to one of Lorne's team and ran up to the front of the Jumper. He sat down heavily in the seat and immediately felt his mind link with the Jumper. He mentally commanded it to start, and then he continued to do a quick mental check-up of the Jumper, just in case.

He could hear Rodney trying to talk, and Jennifer, Carson, and Radek trying to placate him.

"We're getting out of here now, Rodney."

And,

"It's all going to be alright, Rodney."

But then suddenly all of the reassurances stopped. John looked back briefly to see what the matter was. What he saw made him do a double check. Radek was white as a ghost, and the two doctors were looking slightly bewildered and a bit more confused. John did not like the look on the scientist's face.

"What is it, Zelenka?" He asked roughly, his voice low and harsh in his anxiety.

"Rodney. He told me that his calculations had been wrong. He's right. They looked wrong." John could barely hear him, he was speaking so quietly.

"And…What does that mean?" John asked.

"It means that if we don't get out of here now, we're all going to blow up." Zelenka said, his voice deadpanned.

"I thought you said we had enough time!" John glared at him even though he knew it wasn't his fault. He began to carefully lift the Jumper off of the ground, half his concentration on the job at hand, and the other half on the scientist, doctors, and Rodney.

"That was before I knew Rodney's calculations were incorrect. The Jumper's shield power device was over-loading much faster than we first thought. It is about to blow up." He sounded like he was trying to apologize. Well, he probably was. It wasn't exactly the smartest thing to just immediately trust what a hypoglycemic, dehydrated, bleeding, and hallucinating man said. Although, he hadn't thought to double-check it either. They just weren't used to Rodney being wrong about things like this.

John continued to ease the Jumper up. He would go downward as soon as he was over the hole.

He never got that far.

They all heard the explosion. It was huge. It sounded like a thousand bombs going off in the same place at the same time. The walls of the, well, cavern, the best way to describe it, were magnifying the sounds by a hundred and ten percent.

John felt the vibrations even though the Jumper was already in the air. It made his arms and the controls his hands were on shake uncontrollably, and his entire body felt incredibly uncomfortable. His head was shaking, his vision was blurred, and he couldn't seem to be able to make a sound.

He could hear talking behind him. Actually, now that he listened a bit better, it sounded more like shouting. It would be a bit hard to hear someone with all the back-ground noise.

"Colonel." Lorne greeted as he sat fell pilot's seat. He had a large cut on his cheek, his hair was more messy than usual, and he was holding his chest like he had been hit there hard; basically, he looked like he had been thrown around on a rollercoaster. Which was basically true.

"Lorne. Some explosion, huh?"

Lorne looked at him, eyes wide.

"That was only the beginning, sir. Zelenka said that only part of the reactor blew, to signal that the rest would blow soon. It was one of those safety precautions that the Ancients put on."

John could only look at the major.

Then he heard another loud sound, except this one was much, much bigger than the previous one. He looked forward and, right as he felt the Jumper being pushed forward from the force of the explosion, and felt burning heat on his back and head, he pushed down the controls and tried to maneuver the Jumper through the suddenly very small hole.

He could feel the sides of the Jumper hitting the sides of the hole. He could hear the grating sound of metal hitting metal. He had long since stopped seeing his life flash before his eyes every time that he almost died, but this time he thought he caught a flash of a memory from when he was four years old. And then, his hands still on the controls pushing the Jumper down, he blacked out.

**A/N- OOOH! Cliff Hanger! What's going to happen? I'll try to get up the next chapter as soon as I can. **

**Please read and review, and remember (Said in the voice Barbie from Toy Story 2 used), constructive criticism and reviews make a writer happy! Until next time. **


	7. When Swimming Couldn't Be An Option

**A/N-Hey Everyone! I'm back with the next chapter YAY! Anyway, I just wanted to say sorry for any spelling or other mistakes. Apparently, Dr. Woolsey is actually Mr. Woolsey, according to several sources. I had been writing Dr. instead of Mr. I think it's because I still think of Woolsey as the Doctor from Star Trek Voyager. HAHA! Anyway, Thank you everyone who reviewed so so much! I really appreciate it and all the help that you've given me! Thanks! **

Everyone in Atlantis felt the explosion. It rocked the underwater base, which rocked the rest of Atlantis, slightly in some places, and harder in others. Some just shook it off as a large wave hitting Atlantis and rocking it slightly, or an experiment in the labs gone wrong—they did get those often. However, those that thought that were very few. Everyone else either radioed someone they knew would know, or went to some of the balconies to see what they could see. And still others went to the Control Room, the only place where people were sure to know.

However, those that did go there were more than slightly worried by the white faced Mr. Woolsey, the techs trying to contact Col. Sheppard, Teyla, Ronan, Major Lorne, _anyone, _and the scientists looking over scanner data, sensor data, explosion data, and arguing. It looked like another one of those disasters that took hold of their lives every other week or so.

Except this time, no one seemed to have any idea what to do.

He felt kind of like he was swimming. It was a strange sensation, really, since he didn't remember getting into the water. Puddle. There was something about a puddle, though. How could you swim in a puddle? Was that even possible? Maybe for ants. But he wasn't an ant. No, he was a man. And he wasn't even a small man, either. At least, not small enough to swim in a puddle.

Back to the swimming sensation. He felt like it because he felt really light-weight, and he kept rolling around, but slowly. He could practically hear the fantasia music in the background.

But then, suddenly, he felt himself lurch to the right and hit solid…solid…something. It was very uncomfortable. He could hear something—grumbling. He felt a hand on his head. It felt good.

The last thing he heard before he drifted off into calm nothingness was someone calling his name, _Rodney, Rodney._

John lifted his head from the Control Console. His head _hurt. _He looked up blearily. He could see ocean outside the view screen. He could feel something sticky on his head, his hands were numb, and his ears were ringing. Everything felt off, kind of like he was falling in slow motion. In was strange.

_What happened?_

And then it all came back to him. Rodney being kidnapped; them contacting him; him getting hurt; the power over-load in the shield power station; them going to rescue him in a Jumper; finding Rodney; the explosion…

He felt so dizzy. He cradled his head in his hands briefly. He could hear something strange. It sounded like fuzziness would sound like if it had a sound. _What? What does that mean? _He shook his head.

Wait, was the fuzziness starting to make sense? Yes, yes it was.

"—Ohn, come in. Teyla? Ronan? Colonel Sheppard, come in. John?" John blinked. Was Mr. Woolsey calling him John? He must have been calling for a _long _time for him to have started with first names.

He stretched his neck and heard a few pops. Everything hurt, and he still felt like he was falling in slow motion. He looked over at the control panel. Ah, the inertial dampeners had been damaged in the explosion, so they weren't working very well. He stretched out a bleeding right hand a hit the com. Button.

"Mr. Woolsey, we're here." He said, his voice sounding raspy and distant to his ears. He was still suffering from the effects of the explosion.

"Col. Sheppard! We feared the worst." John could practically hear the entire Control Room sigh in relief. Except, he couldn't because he could only just barely hear Mr. Woolsey.

"Yeah, so did I." He said gruffly. Then a thought sprang into his mind. _His team. _

He looked around, wincing as he felt white pain push against his back. He saw Lorne in the seat next to him, unconscious, but except for that, apparently alright. He looked around farther. He saw the rest of Lorne's team, two of them unconscious on the floor, and the other looking up dazedly from the ground next to the seat behind the co-pilot's seat.

He could see Ronan on the ground in the back. He had what looked like a minor head wound and his arm was bleeding. Apart from that, and the fact that he was only just waking up from unconsciousness, he seemed alright.

Teyla was slowly sitting up from where she had fallen on the bench on the left side from where you entered the Jumper. She had a hand to her head and her eyes were slightly unfocused. She, too, seemed basically unhurt.

Jennifer was conscious next to the bench Rodney was on (the right one on entrance into the Jumper), and was bleeding from a cut on her leg and another on her arm. She was checking Rodney's vitals, also a bit dazed.

Carson was slowly sitting up with only a small cut across his cheek and a dazed expression on his face. The nurse that they had brought along was sitting up slowly, her eyes wide. It looked like she had sprained her ankle, but she was otherwise unhurt. The two doctors and the nurse had been sitting and holding on when the Jumper had been pushed by the explosion, which was probably the only reason they hadn't been thrown around so much that they passed out.

Zelenka was also waking up, slowly and with an incredibly confused look on his face, next to the nurse. He was holding his hand in a strange position. John had sprained his wrist enough times to know that though Zelenka's sprain wasn't too bad, it had to hurt.

John's eyes were averted to Rodney. He had been strapped down securely before they left, just in case. He looked worse than he had before, but didn't seem to have any extra injuries.

The woman they had found in Rodney's Jumper was unconscious—whether from her first round of unconsciousness or from hitting her head during the explosion, John didn't know. He went over and kicked her leg. She didn't even move. John turned around. Ronan was already pulling out his blaster and aiming it at the woman.

John shook his head again to try to clear his thoughts. He stood up, slowly and unsteadily. After checking the pulses of Lorne and his team, he turned to his own team and the two doctors and the nurse.

"Teyla, are you alright?" He asked, his voice still hoarse.

Teyla looked up at him, her eyes focusing a bit more.

"I think I am mostly unharmed, colonel." She replied. John nodded.

"How about you, Ronan?"

Ronan looked up. "Alright." He said, his voice sounding even more hoarse than John's.

He turned to the two doctors, both of whom looked quite confused.

"Carson, Jennifer, you two okay?"

Jennifer opened her mouth to speak, but coughed instead. Carson patted her on the back lightly.

"Aye, Colonel. I'm alright. Are you okay, Jennifer?" Carson replied.

Jennifer just nodded, still coughing slightly. Carson turned to the nurse and asked her quietly if she was alright. She just looked at him, looking scared and confused. Carson checked over her ankle while she just stared, wide eyed.

John remembered that she had just come in a few months ago on the Daedalus. _What were the doctors thinking bringing her along on a mission like this? _He wondered.

John turned to Zelenka.

"Zelenka, you okay?" He asked. Zelenka looked up at him, his eyes narrowed slightly in hurt and annoyance.

"Uh, yes, I think that apart from the sprained wrist, I am alright." He gasped as he touched his foot and pulled back his hand. John winced in sympathy.

Carson turned to Rodney next. He checked his vitals, head wounds, knife wound, hand fracture, and sprained leg. John could hear him clicking his tongue when he checked certain places. With each click John because more and more nervous.

Carson looked up and saw John's worried face. "It's alright, John. Or, at least, it will be when we get him back to the infirmary." Carson's voice was firm, which was the only thing that kept John from talking back. He nodded slightly before walking, shakily, back to the front of the Jumper and plopping down heavily in the pilot's seat.

"Ronan, keep your blaster aimed at her. If she wakes up, yell." John ordered. Ronan nodded.

He turned to the communicator.

"Woolsey, can the scanners pick us up?" He wanted to know before putting his head in his hands. He really needed an aspirin. There was silence for a few moments, and then Mr. Woolsey spoke up.

"Not yet, Col. Sheppard. We are starting to pick up your signal beacon, but the explosion is still interfering with our scanners. We should be able to pick you up in a few moments."

"Affirmative. Keep me informed."

"Will do. Woolsey Out."

John heard groaning in the seat next to him and turned to see a now-awake, or almost awake, Major Lorne.

"Major, how are you feeling?" John asked softly.

"Alright, Colonel. What happened exactly?" John could see a bit of something dark and liquidy among Lorne's hair.

"Well, the, uh, second explosion hit and I fell unconscious. Unless this is some very, _very _backward and not-so-heaven-like heaven, we're still alive." John replied, trying to sound light and playful. Lorne nodded but made no further comment.

"Colonel!" John jumped at Carson's worried voice. He jumped to the back of the Jumper, feeling nauseous on the way.

"What?" John asked, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Caron looked up at the colonel, his face getting whiter by the minute. He pointed one shaky hand to the left corner of the Jumper. John turned and could barely hold on both a surprised gasp and an annoyed groan.

There, in the left corner of the Jumper, a small puddle of water was forming.

Mr. Woolsey paced back and forth in his office. It was taking far too long for the sensors to start working again.

He wasn't really a worrying type of person. He was serious and mostly emotionally absent from all of his jobs. But for some strange reason he had got more than just attached to the people in Atlantis. He had started to think of them as friends. It was something that he had never done before, and he found himself both really liking and really hating it.

There was a knock on his door that surprised him so much that he almost fell over his own feet.

"Mr. Woolsey? The scanners are working now, and we're scanning for Col. Sheppard's Jumper." Chuck the Technician told him. Woolsey nodded and followed him out into the Control Room.

There were a few scientists there, scanning and checking the data. They nodded at him and he looked over at what they had gathered. He sighed. _Of course, when were things _ever _easy with SGA1? _

"Col. Sheppard? We scanned for the Jumper. And you are not going to like what we got back." He shifted his mouth into a thin, grim line.

John turned away from the communicator and the absolutely horrible conversation he had just had with Mr. Woolsey and the scanner. This was even worse than they thought.

_Yeah, John, it'll be easy. You just go in and grab Rodney and get out of there before it the other Jumper explodes. There was barely any chance that something like _this _would happen. _John could officially say, or think, that he was really tired of his optimism.

"Wha' is it, Colonel?" Carson called back having heard a bit of what Woolsey had said and had seen John's face.

Ronan and Teyla looked up as John entered the rear compartment. Though Jennifer was still turned toward Rodney, John could tell that she, too, was listening.

"What is it, John?" Teyla asked, a bruise beginning to appear right below her left eye. John walked over to them, still keeping half an eye on the woman.

"Mr. Woolsey just radioed in to say that the scanners are working again." John left that hanging for a moment.

"And…?" Zelenka prompted quietly.

"They found the Jumper. It's really not good." He said. He was about to continue when Rodney started to cough.

Carson turned around quickly and began helping Jennifer with Rodney. They took the oxygen mask off of him while he coughed. John saw a bit of blood come out of the scientist's mouth. That wasn't good.

After Rodney was done coughing, he started to shake. He was mumbling incoherently, and he had broken out into a cold sweat. He kept trying to shake off Jennifer and Carson's attempts at putting the mask back on him.

"Rodney! Rodney, calm down. It's alright." Jennifer soothed. She opened one of his eyes and shined a light in. John saw that his pupil was erratic.

Rodney blinked against Jennifer's fingers and the doctor quickly removed them. The scientist very slowly opened both his eyes, both of which were heavily unfocused.

"Rodney? It's alright. We're all okay, really." Jennifer said soothingly. Rodney looked at her, but at the same time he didn't. He seemed to be looking beyond her. John instinctively turned to where he was looking.

_Uh-oh, _John thought.

Rodney had seen the puddle.

"Rodney, it's alright. It's just a minor leak. We'll be fine." John said, trying to reassure him. Rodney looked at him, trying to refocus his eyes on the Colonel. Then Rodney just nodded, after a moment of contemplation, and angled his head into a more comfortable position and closed his eyes.

John looked around at the assembled people. They all looked alarmed at Rodney's behavior.

Rodney just didn't _do _that. It was just…just…_wrong. _He was definitely _not _okay.

"Sheppard." John turned his head at Ronan's quiet call. He nodded, showing the large Satedan that he had heard.

"You were going to tell us what Mr. Woolsey said."

"Yeah…" John turned back to Rodney, but the man didn't seem to even hear them. John turned around to face the rest of his team as well as the doctors.

"The Jumper hit a, umm, pointy rock, which caused the hull breach, and is not lodged between two very, very large rocks." John saw the worried and border-line hysteria on the faces of those in front of him—actually, the former of those two was more on the faces of his team, and, out of the corner of his eye he saw it on Lorne's team too, while the later was on the faces of the others—and he hastened to assure them.

"But, the Jumper doesn't appear to be _stuck _between the rocks, just kind of sitting there securely. Mr. Woolsey's pretty sure that we might be able to get out." John winced as he saw the relief flood their faces.

"Only problem. The Jumper doesn't have enough juice left in it to be able to give it a strong enough push to get _through _the rocks and _out _of the water." John said, his voice getting even more and more worried and tired by the word.

The universe really was out to get them.

Teyla sat down heavily on the bench and closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. She was very tired having not slept at all since Rodney's untimely disappearance. She was stilled a bit shaken up from the double explosion, and the new information that had just come to the light—was that how that Earth saying went?—did not help the situation.

During the explosion, the Jumper had been rolling and spinning around, and Teyla had been awake until near the end when she had been knocked out by hitting her head. And that before-mentioned head hurt like _crazy. _

She breathed in deeply. Normally this would have been the time that she would have sent a prayer to the ancestors, but lately, meaning the last few years, she had begun to think of the ancients as gods or spirits no longer. They were simply higher human beings. Instead, she simply wished upon the stars she couldn't see that they would once again get out alive and, mostly, well.

She, as well as everyone else on the Jumper that was in the condition to do so, was watching the woman. She hadn't even moved. Teyla had had several instances where she had wanted to hurt the woman for taking Rodney and causing all of this. She did not, though.

She looked over at Rodney as he stirred. Jennifer and Carson were talking quietly by the bulk head doors, and they did not see him. Teyla got up slowly only to go down on her knees next to Rodney. She lifted a hand and gently put it on Rodney. She believed that Rodney would like to know he was not alone.

Rodney shook violently under Teyla's hand before calming. His breathing was deeper, and his eyes were fluttering open and closed, as though they could not decide on what course of action to take.

"Doctors?" She called back, earning the attention of not only the two doctors she had been calling, but also everyone in the Jumper. "I think he is awakening."

Jennifer and Carson kneeled down on either side of Teyla. As Jennifer checked Rodney's pulse, he began to open his eyes, slowly. He then closed them. His breathing steadied. Jennifer moved back away from him with a sigh. Rodney did not seem to want to wake up.

Well, that's what they thought. Rodney's eyes had snapped open.

Rodney jumped back into consciousness like one would jump from one side of a crevice to another. He found this strange. Normally, especially after an injury, he and most other people would swim slowly back into reality. He did not. He wondered at that briefly.

Then he noticed that there was a cool hand on his hand, and another on his forehead. It was nice, since at the current moment he felt like he was being burned. Most likely from the fever.

"…—Ney? Rodney?" Someone was calling him, quietly. Rodney looked over, his vision just trying to keep up with his head.

He looked at, well, something. They were all fuzzy looking and weird. He couldn't tell if the person in front of him was Teyla or Ronan. Was there a difference? Yes, and quite a big one at that.

He lifted his left hand to his eyes and started to rub them gently. When he put it back down, he could see better. Teyla was sitting in front of him, Jennifer and Carson on either side of her.

"T-la." Rodney tried. His mouth felt sticky, kind of like it had been stuck with Duct Tape. Jennifer reached over to her bottle and dribbled some water into Rodney's mouth. It helped, but only a bit.

"Teyla." He tried again. It was better this time, but the words were stilled slurred, even to him. Teyla smiled down at him before squeezing his hand and moving back to give the doctors better access.

Rodney looked down at his hand hazily, wondering where the coolness had gone.

He didn't smell strawberries anymore, which he thought was nice. But he did smell iron. Or something like that. Maybe he didn't. He couldn't really tell.

"Hey buddy, how are you feeling?" That sounded like John, but Rodney couldn't tell since the Colonel wasn't in his range of view. But then he entered it, his hair still as spiky as usual.

Rodney really wanted to send back a biting comment, but he just didn't have the strength to do it. John's face turned from a smile to a frown in about .015 seconds after Rodney didn't answer.

He really just wanted to go back to sleep. Or get something to eat. Or get some of Jennifer and Carson's good meds, the ones that they only use on special occasions. He felt that he being kidnapped and almost dying several times, but not, was a special occasion.

He could just barely see a woman lying unconscious by the doors. She was wearing clothes that did not fit the Atlantis regulation clothing. He surmised that she had probably been one of the people to kidnap him.

But then he remembered the water. There had been only a bit of it, but looking back not he could tell that the puddle had grown in however long he had been asleep. He was worried.

The others must have seen him looking at the puddle, because he felt Jennifer squeeze his hand in as much reassurance as she could give him.

He looked over at John. Though John's face was the perfect picture of lazy boredom, Rodney had known him long enough to see the worried, haunted look in his eyes.

"How…bad." He asked, his voice quiet and ragged. John just looked at him. The Colonel didn't want to say.

"How…bad." The scientist insisted. John sighed.

"We're stuck with minimal ability to get out, and we're gaining water."

Rodney looked around at the Jumper.

"Well," He croaked haltingly, "…that's just…wonderful."

**A/N-Another chapter finished! I've already started the next, so it will be up eventually, hopefully soon-ish. I hope you liked it! Please review, it makes me very happy. :)**


	8. When The Doors Just Won't Survive

**A/N-Hey Everyone! I'm back with another chapter! I'm quite proud of what I've done here, so I hope you like it! Oh, and thanks again to everyone that's been helping me out or reviewing. It makes me very happy. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer-I do not own any of the characters, places, or things that you might possibly recognize. **

Ronon kept his blaster trained on the unconscious woman. She had barely moved at all since Ronon had woken up, but he preferred to not take any chances.

Rodney was still awake because of Keller and Becket's insistence that he needed to stay conscious. They had mostly emptied one of the pacts to use as an additional pillow. The elevation helped, even if just a little, to discourage Rodney from taking a, short from what he said, nap.

Ronon had taken a bit of amusement from watching Rodney half-heartedly argue with the two doctors. The scientist seemed to just be doing it for something to do. Almost half of what he said made no sense, and eventually he moved on to topics other than his medical health. Everyone had long since caught on to the fact that Rodney was just trying to keep himself awake, so they talked to him too.

Ronon would have joined in, but he really wasn't the most talkative guy. He would add a word or a sentence here or there, but basically he kept half an ear in the conversation, half an eye on Rodney for signs of weakness or pain, and the rest on the unconscious woman on the floor.

When he had first seen the woman on the ground, he hadn't noticed that she was unconscious, that she had a few cuts and bruises here and there, or that she looked like she had been cut. No, he had noticed the abundance of blood that was obviously not hers alone, and the gun and knife in her hands. He had felt that same boiling anger that had come upon him when his home had been destroyed, and came on him every time someone he had come to care about was put in danger. The doctors had surmised that the gun wounds on Rodney were identical to the blast from her gun.

This woman, no matter how harmless she seemed right then, had hurt his team mate. His friend. He didn't like that.

**oOo**

Zelenka was sitting next to Rodney, both conversing in low tones. John and the others were impatiently waiting to be clued in on the goings on in the scientists' minds.

Sometimes John was pretty sure he wanted to know absolutely nothing that went on in those scary minds of theirs, but this time he was practically aching to be let in on it.

"Jo—" Rodney started, but latched into a type of dry wheezing. Jenifer immediately went over, but there really wasn't much she could do to help. She just looked on, a pained expression covering her soft features.

"John." Rodney tried again. "We need you to get Carter on the com. We need to talk to her about something." John was about to argue, about to say that they should "share with the rest of the class", but the tired and deathly pale look on his friend's face made him practically jump over to the front of the 'Jumper.

"Mr. Woolsey? Come in, please." John spoke out over the com unit.

"Col. Sheppard, yes?"

"Rodney and Zelenka need Carter to come onto the com unit. They need to talk to her about something. Could you get her?"

"Right away, Colonel. She's over in my office. She'll be here in a moment."

John nodded, not really caring that no one could see it.

**oOo**

Sam walked very quickly over to the Control Room. She had been in Woolsey's office going over the data that the scanners and other such things had provided. She had to admit that the "boom" had been a very big one.

She had been relieved to hear that Rodney was awake, and obviously staying awake for a while. It was better to stay awake. Besides, she needed someone who knew the 'Jumper and all its systems like the back of their hand. Though Zelenka was good, he didn't know all of the specifics that might be needed to figure a way out of the little predicament they were in.

As she approached Mr. Woolsey and the techs and scientists and marines, Sam could see how tense they were, how worried they looked. Three of Atlantis' chief officers were down there, as well as SGA's front-of-the-line team. That was the professional reason of course. There was always an underlying reason. Always.

"Mr. Woolsey?" She asked once she was standing in front of him.

He just motioned to the com unit. She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing further, instead choosing to speak into the com unit.

"Col. Sheppard? It's Col. Carter." She said, wondering why she had decided to use their ranks. Maybe it was because there were so many people listening in.

"Colonel. Rodney and Zelenka want to talk to you. Don't ask why, they haven't told me." Carter could practically hear his tenseness over the com. "I'm patching them, and the rest of the 'Jumper, through." Carter nodded, forgetting that the other Colonel couldn't see her.

Everyone seemed to lean forward in anticipation of…what? Well, something was drawing them forward. Sam just hoped that it was worth the speeding hearts.

"Sam?" A hoarse, shallow sounding voice whispered out. Sam knew immediately that it was Rodney. From the mixed emotions on everyone else's faces, they did too.

"Yes, Rodney. Are you alright?" Sam said this, fully expecting, and hoping, to get a biting remark about how he was "so not okay" or that he really enjoyed "spending my free time getting kidnapped and almost blown up and then stuck in a 'Jumper, again". But she did not.

"Uh, yeah. I'm alright. Or, at least, I will be when we get out of here." Carter almost jumped back from shock at the lifelessness in his voice. He was having hypoglycemic side effects.

She had had a friend once who was incredibly hypoglycemic. One time, he, her friend, had been unable to eat or hydrate properly for several hours, and had sounded like that before he went into an early stage of hypoglycemic shock and then into a coma. He had been alright, of course, once they had gotten in some proper nutrients and such in his blood stream. But they had gotten to him in time. If they couldn't get to Rodney in time…

She shook those thoughts from her head and turned her attention back to the com unit and those on the other side of it.

"Uh, that's great, McKay." Carter said, trying to sound happy and reassuring. She was almost absolutely sure that she failed so miserably it wasn't even funny. She could hear, or not hear, the strained silence in the background. McKay was, inadvertently or not, keeping everyone in a very annoying and tense suspense.

"So, what've you got?" She said, deciding it was a good time to cut to the chase.

"We think that there may be a way to get us out of here." Carter waited while Rodney drew in a deep, ragged breath. She knew from experience that he must be extremely tired. "We think we may be able to pick up enough power to cause an explosion that will give us enough momentum to push us out of here." Rodney said.

Carter blinked. What…?

"What do you mean, cause an explosion?" John said.

"I mean," Rodney had to stop for a second, "We will cause an explosion and the momentum from the explosion will push us out of here."

Carter looked over at Mr. Woolsey. She didn't really understand how an explosion would help. She could think of dozens of things they could do, but Rodney just wasn't making much sense like that.

"I see one very big gaping hole in that plan, McKay." John said, his voice sounding as it always did when he was stressed, worried, and tired. Carter wondered if it was bad that she could identify his emotions through his voice.

"Yeah, because you haven't heard the whole...plan yet. Look, we're hoping that if the explosion is strong enough, it will push us…not only out of this crevice or…rock or whatever, but also out of the water." Rodney had been talking a lot for how wounded and tired he was. He was starting to need to take deep breaths before speaking again.

Zelenka's voice sounded tired. "Rodney, you're not making any sense to them."

Rodney sounded surprised. "What do you mean…I'm not making any sense? It seems pretty…straight forward to me." She could practically see Zelenka shake his head before turning back to the others and speaking.

"We plan to blow the back doors. We'll move everyone to the front and close those doors, and then we'll blow the outer ones. If the explosion is as strong as we hope it will be, the momentum should push us completely out of the water, where we won't need to close the doors anymore."

Carter nodded, understanding. Rodney really just hadn't been making a whole lot of sense.

"That's what I said. Or meant." McKay said. Carter narrowed her eyes in worry. Rodney just didn't say things like that. It just wasn't like him. Actually, the last part was, but the truly making no sense, even to another scientist, wasn't.

"But what if it does not work?" Teyla asked.

"Well, then we'll, umm, probably…either drown or…explode too." Rodney replied.

There was silence.

"I don't understand why we don't just get the Daedalus to beam us out." Ronon said gruffly, his voice sounding hoarse.

"Because, Ronon," Sam said, looking at the scanner data, "there is far too much interference caused by not only the explosion, but also by the water and…" She looked at the data. That wasn't right. Huh. "And something else we've been unable to identify." Her voice in the last sentence was filled with a type of wondering confusion. What was the unidentified interference?

"Oh." Ronon said.

"Yes, oh." Rodney croaked.

"Alright then, how do you plan on making an explosion big enough?" John asked, his voice holding some sort of finality that stopped any further, for the moment at least, questioning.

"Well, we plan on…making a fast buildup of…energy in the…the…Do you guys smell…strawberries?" Rodney said.

Sam blinked. Strawberries? What the…?

There was complete silence on the other end, just like there was in the Gate room. The com unit was on "speaker", so everyone in the general vicinity could hear what was happening. And everyone looked incredibly confused and slightly worried.

"Uh, no, Rodney, we don't smell any, uh, strawberries." She heard Jennifer's careful voice come out of the com unit.

"Huh, I could have sworn…Anyway, we plan on…making a buildup in the," Rodney stopped to breathe, "Crystals that control the door. Though the door crystals themselves can't hold that much…power, it will be buffered into the crystals around it, but...eventually it will be too much and the whole thing will…explode." Rodney's need for air in between words was becoming more and more pressing.

Though they had taken IV's filed with nutrients and oxygen, etcetera, down with them, the team and company didn't have enough to last for more than just a short amount of time, and definitely not enough to help Rodney much. It had helped a little, though. Enough to where he could breathe alright and he could speak, albeit quietly and with several pauses. He still needed help, though.

"But there's another problem. The back would be blown, so the engines wouldn't work, correct? How would you get out?" Mr. Woolsey asked.

"Oh, that's the easy part. We would just have the Daedalus beam us out. You see, when we're at the surface, there won't be near as much interference, so the Daedalus should be able to beam them out." Carter replied.

"Still, I would prefer to leave that as a last resort. Any other options?" John asked.

There was silence. Sam looked around the Control Room at the assorted group of people. They all had blank looks on their faces. Sam looked back at the Com unit despite the fact that she couldn't see John and Company.

More silence.

"Well, how long will it take to blow up the door?" The colonel asked.

"Not long. A few moments at the most." Zelenka replied.

Carter started to do a few calculations on her computer. Then something caught her eye. She pulled up the scanner data telling where the 'Jumper was positioned. Cross referencing it to the Ancient database, she found out exactly what part of the City it was under. _Oh, boy, _she thought.

"Um, Mr. Woolsey? Rodney, Radek?" She called out, making Woolsey turn to her and Zelenka stop talking on the other end.

"There may be a slight problem. It seems that the 'Jumper is positioned directly underneath a part of the underwater base. That wouldn't be too bad if the part it was under wasn't directly connected to a power relay of the ZPM." Mr. Woolsey just looked at her blankly. He didn't quite understand.

"Oh, no!" But Rodney and Radek did.

"What does that mean, exactly?" John's voice rang out.

"It means, John, that if the explosion hits in just the right way, it could cause a very large energy stream to run straight to the ZPM power station. The underwater base has an area that holds some emergency power from the ZPM. If that energy stream hit it, the entire underwater base could blow."

Mr. Woolsey's eyes grew larger. "That doesn't sound good."

"It's not." Rodney replied, resigned. Sam felt slightly alarmed. Rodney wasn't allowed to feel resigned.

"Okay, so we leave that as a definite last resort." John said.

Well, back to the figurative black boards.

**oOo**

Rodney had once again lapsed into a silence that set everyone in the 'Jumper on edge, so used to his animated motions and loud constant dialogue were they that this was quite unsettling.

Everyone would take turns saying things to him, trying to get him to talk, but he appeared to have all his energy focused on trying to breathe.

They had tried to get him to eat the emergency rations they had with them, and he had tried. He had been able to eat one and a half power bars. It had helped a lot, but every other injury he had suffered was catching up now that his hypoglycemia was calming down.

They had been able to stop most of the bleeding from his two head wounds and his knife wound. He had a concussion, which seemed to not have gotten any worse. Carson was pretty sure Rodney had a very mild form of DAI-Diffuse Axonal Injury. This time it was caused by a contrecoup injury—when the skull was forced forward and impacted with something causing an abrupt halt, which caused the brain to hit the impacted part of the skull. When the skull was righted or forced back, the brain would hit the opposite side of the skull—DAI is a trauma to a wide area of the skull and often the brain, and it affects axons. There were certain drugs that could be used for any side effects as well as many symptoms, while the trauma injuries could be fixed by surgery and heal time. It often took hours to days for the affects to begin to take effect.

Rodney moved slightly, every movement causing him pain.

Carson turned away from Rodney's vacant eyes. He hated this part. The watching, waiting for something to go wrong, knowing there was little to nothing that they could do to help if it did. He really hated it. He had taken an oath to help people and to never cause harm, and though he knew that he was in no way to blame for what was happening, he blamed himself for not being able to help.

It was stupid, he knew, but he really just couldn't help it. He had been told often that he cared too much. He replied that he just had very good bedside manners and a very caring mother.

**oOo**

Zelenka sighed. He really didn't want to do this, but he knew that he needed to. He couldn't do this without Rodney.

"Rodney? Rodney? I need you to help, please." He said after moving over next to Rodney.

The other scientist opened one eye halfway. He looked over at Zelenka quizzically.

"Remember? We need to make all the calculations for the "bomb" just in case." Zelenka said, speaking gently. Rodney looked confused for a moment before recognition dawned in his bright blue eyes. Neither one of them wanted to risk the underwater base blowing up, but they might have no choice. It was best to be prepared.

"Right." He whispered. Zelenka put another mostly-empty pack under his head to elevate it.

"Here are my calculations. We're just going to go in a type of a circle, okay? I see your work, you see my work, we get done." Zelenka said, his voice accenting slightly from worry. Rodney nodded. Zelenka's eyes grew larger. Rodney hadn't even said one thing about not needing his work checked. He was already correcting Radek's work with a pen he had given him, so he must be alright enough to spot some mistake. That was good. When Rodney lost hope in his own work, the entire universe would just "pop" out of existence. Just like that.

After a few moments, Rodney handed that piece of paper back. Radek looked through everything Rodney had done. He wasn't as brilliant as Rodney was, but he was just about one cell behind, so everything there made sense to him, and nothing seemed wrong. Not that there were many mistakes, since it was a fairly simple thing, but still. Good, Rodney could still spot even the smallest of mistakes. That was definitely good.

**oOo**

Teyla looked over at the rapidly growing pool of water on the floor.

They didn't have much time left.

**oOo**

Suddenly, there was a loud noise like when you poured water on a power cord. Teyla, who was sitting next to it, jumped up and backed away immediately and tripped. Ronon caught and steadied her. The water from the leaks had reached one of the crystal boards. Normally they would have been fine with water on them, but they had already been damaged by several different things and didn't seem to have much will left to live. It sparked a few times and then stopped. Then the lights went off.

"Well, looks like its bed time." John's voice rang out through the silenced darkness. Everyone turned to glare or raise an eyebrow in his general direction. Or they just looked on helplessly.

"Wait, I think I can fix it." Zelenka said. There was a bit of shuffling, and then a muffled noise from Teyla's direction.

"Ooh!"

"Sorry Teyla."

"Umph."

"Sorry Carson."

"Hey!"

"Sorry, uh, what's your name again?"

"Caterina Van Der Pole."

"Oh, very sorry, Ms. Van Der Pole."

"Hey, watch it!"

"Uh, excuse me, Major Lorne."

"Radek! That was my foot!"

"Sorry, Colonel. Ah, here it is."

A small beam of light shone out from next to John under the bench seat next to the mid-way doors on the left side. Radek had crawled from the right back of the 'Jumper all the way over there, hitting several people on the way.

Zelenka tinkered with a few crystals, turning some around, switching places, and in two cases, he even through them back behind him, narrowly missing Ronon. The Satedan just stared as Zelenka stammered an apology. Then the lights came back on, albeit more dim than before, but still on.

"Well done, Dr. Zelenka." Teyla said, nodding and smiling at the doctor.

But Zelenka wasn't paying any attention to what was happening around him. He was looking at his computer pad, his eyes widening comically. He started to matter in Czech before looking up in alarm at Rodney. Rodney fixed his tired-looking eyes on the Czech scientist.

"What is it, Radek?" He whispered. Zelenka moved over and knelt beside him, holding up his pad so that the other man could see it.

"Uh-oh." Rodney whispered.

"What, uh-oh, Rodney?" John asked.

Rodney looked up at him.

"The power levels in the 'Jumper are dropping incredibly fast. It won't last us much longer."

"And…?" Teyla urged.

"And, we're running out of oxygen as well as pressure and everything keeping us alive."

"So fix it." John said, his voice sounding slightly, oh so slightly, hysterical.

"I can't. John, we need to do the explosion now or…" Rodney coughed half way through the sentence. John patted his back and looked at Zelenka.

"Or…?"

Zelenka fixed a tired and worried gaze on the even more haggard John Sheppard.

"Or we run out of all our power and will not be able to do it later."

John looked at him. "Well, if that's all."

"It's not." Rodney gasped out. John looked incredulously at the physicist.

"It's not?"

"No. Water is leaking into the 'Jumper at a much faster rate than before, now that the pressure has dropped from the power loss exponentially. We're all going to die."

Rodney than proceeded to drop his head back on the packs and try to breathe.

**oOo**

"There was…The cryst-..of water…the lights went…There's a major…drain…it. We're going to….do the….Mckay and…think that…will…if we don't."

Mr. Richard Woolsey and Dr. Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter looked at each other and blinked. Mr. Woolsey turned to one of the technicians.

"Can you fix that?"

The technician looked over at the data and then nodded. After a few moments of waiting, he nodded at Mr. Woolsey.

"Col. Sheppard, please repeat that, it didn't come through." Mr. Woolsey said through the com unit.

"Right. There was a slight problem. The crystals were fried because of water and other such things. The 'Jumper is draining power incredibly fast. We're going to have to do the explosion thing. Mckay and Zelenka think that if we don't start now, there won't be enough power to do it later. Sir, I know that you don't like this, but I think that it's the only thing to do."

Mr. Woolsey sighed. If they did this explosion-thing, the underwater base could explode and they could all die. If they didn't—well, they could still die, it would probably just take longer and there would be no extra explosions. He sighed again before looking at Col. Carter.

Her eyes were soft and her gaze sympathetic. She had been the leader of Atlantis once. She had had to make the hard decisions. She understood. But there was something else in her eyes. Trust. She was willing to trust his decision and stand by it.

Mr. Woolsey knew that she knew what decision he would make, no matter how long and hard he thought about not making it. That was probably one of the reasons she was so willing to stand by him. It was the decision that she would make, it fell into step with the whole "we don't leave anyone behind" thing, and it was pretty daredevil. It was still reassuring that she trusted him, even if only on certain bases.

"Alright, Col. Sheppard. Start the power build-up." Mr. Woolsey ordered.

**oOo**

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Would you _please _stop that Colonel?" Zelenka asked, looking up at John who was sitting in the pilot's seat and toggling his P-90 safety on and off. It had been interesting to listen to first, since it made a very funny sounding tap noise, but then it just got down-right annoying.

After a while, Ronon had looked like he wanted to take John's P-90 and throw it away. Now he looked like he wanted to take John's P-90 and shoot him with it. John put the gun down.

Rodney looked up confused. "There it is…again. Hey, are you sure you don't smell strawberries?" He looked so confused. It was sad.

John looked up sharply. This was the second time he had mentioned smelling strawberries, and it was making John worried. From the looks on everyone else's faces, they were worried too.

"Rodney, we don't smell any strawberries." He said, his voice taking on a slight note of exhaustion and worry. Rodney looked at him.

"Hey, do strawberries have citrus in them?" John opened his mouth to answer, and then stopped. Did they have citrus in them?

"Carson, do strawberries have citrus in them?" He asked the doctor. Rodney turned to look at the scot as well as just about everyone else in the 'Jumper. Carson sighed.

"Yes. Strawberries contain citrus. So don't you think about eatin' any, Rodney, unless o' course you wanna die?"

Rodney blinked at him before shaking his head. John turned away and sighed again.

"Radek, those calculations are wrong." Rodney said, a touch of his usual arrogance hidden in the word. John could hear some scuffling behind him, and then the two scientists started to talk about physics and power build up, and John just tuned them out.

He started to think of things. Of the explosion. And the woman lying unconscious in the back of the 'Jumper. And Rodney being kidnapped. And things that followed those lines, and then spun off into their own little things to think about.

Before he knew it, someone was tapping on his shoulder—Radek—and saying that they were ready to start the power build-up. Man, this thinking and reminiscing thing really blew time away. Maybe he should stop thinking about things like that on the job.

**oOo**

Rodney felt the pain explode throughout his body as he slowly slid up into a sitting position. It felt like he was on fire while sitting in a bath filled with ice cubes while a shark/piranha bit his side. It was an experience that he really didn't like. But he just breathed in and sat up, knowing that complaining took up oxygen, and he needed what little air he could get.

He leaned forward slightly, trying to steady his woozy head. Then he looked up slowly and nodded at Zelenka. Zelenka nodded back before moving aside slightly so that Rodney could see the crystals.

Rodney looked up very carefully, trying to keep his head steady. It hurt like crazy. He looked at what Radek had done. Though he would never tell the other scientist, Radek had actually done pretty well, especially since he had never worked on something like this. Radek was good with the 'Jumpers, but sometimes there were certain things that you had to learn to do very quickly, so you had to learn to take shortcuts, which was what Radek wasn't as used to. Rodney would tell him a quicker, better way to do it.

"Ah, okay…Radek. You need to move the third crystal on the fourth row to…"

**oOo**

Carter tapped her fingers on the Ancient console, waiting as patiently as possible for John's call, telling them they were ready to commence "Operation Another Boom", as John liked to call it.

She was worried. There was about no risk to her or the lives of anyone on Atlantis, but there was a tremendous amount affecting _their _lives either way. She deeply hoped this would work.

"Col. Carter? Come in, Sam."

"Right here, John."

"Alright, Rodney and Zelenka say that they're ready to commence "Operation Another Boom"."

Sam turned around and saw Mr. Woolsey heading towards her. She nodded at him. He stopped, so briefly that he might not have. He sighed before nodding at her and hurrying over.

"John? You have a go." She said.

"Alright, then. We'll see you topside."

"John?"

"Yeah?"

"Godspeed."

She sighed as he signed off. They would be seeing each other soon. She was sure of it. Well, actually that wasn't true, but she was sure that _eventually _one way or another, they would meet. She just preferred that it was sooner rather than later.

**oOo**

John winced in sympathy as Rodney cried out in pain. They were moving him over to the seat behind the Pilot's seat. It was very slow going, since almost every time Rodney moved he either hit his injured leg, his injured wrist, or his injured side. He, Ronon, and Carson were helping him as much as they could. He was leaning on Ronon heavily, while Carson was trying to make sure that nothing hit his side or wrist too hard, with John on Rodney's other side. It looked like Rodney might fa-_pass out—_at any moment, as much from exhaustion as from pain.

They were almost to the seat, though, so they were alright.

"You know what, John?" Rodney gasped out through clenched teeth.

"What Rodney?" John asked, deciding it was good to keep Rodney talking, since sitting the man down might be a bit painful.

"When I woke up…this morning, or last, or the morning…before that, whatever morning it…was before this happened, I never thought I would be kidnapped, stabbed, left to…die, rescued, almost…blown up, and then attempt to…blow myself up. I can honestly say…it never, _never _crossed…my mind."

John just had to smirk at that. It was just so, so…Rodney.

"Well, it never crossed _my _mind that I would have to come on a rescue mission to the bottom of Atlantis, only to almost get myself and my team _and _Lorne's team blown up, just to attempt to blow myself up a little while after that."

Rodney smirked at that. "How long has it been…since you, uh, _rescued_ me?" Rodney asked, putting emphasis on the rescued. John decided to let it fly.

"A few hours, tops."

"Really? it feels longer than that."

"Doesn't it?"

They had reached the chair, and Rodney was slowly seating himself. John left Carson to help Rodney sit down as comfortably as possible and decided to check on the progress of the rest of the company.

Radek was doing some last minute check-up on the systems, while Teyla and the nurse—Caterina Van Der Pole—were putting important things—crystals, med kits, and things they were prefer not to lose—into the front compartment. He went over and helped the nurse move one of the crystal boards over to the front compartment. They were only moving crystals that could be taken out without significant changes or damage to the system. They could be used in other 'Jumpers, or something along that line.

"Zelenka, you ready?" He called back after everyone else had moved to the front. It was rather cramped and uncomfortable, but it would have to do.

"Almost…Yes, I'm ready." Radek replied.

Radek hurried into the front compartment. He pulled out his computer pad and tapped a few things on it. John could feel the power flow through the 'Jumper and collect in one central area. He sat down in the Pilot's seat and readied himself to fly through and up. It would be quite a feat, since the back of the 'Jumper would be exploding, but…he had always loved a good challenge.

"Colonel, the overload will commence in 10 seconds." Radek told him. John nodded.

"Alright, everyone, hold on tight. This is goin' to be a bumpy right."

"5..." Radek called out, "4...3...2...1"

Then he felt it, the explosion, as it rocked the back of the 'Jumper and as the power flooded through the 'Jumper, giving it momentum.

John pushed the 'Jumper forward hard, with both his mind and the controls. He could hear the scraping of the rocks around it as the ship scraped along it. He could feel the vibrations of the power just begging to be let free. He could both hear and feel the water that flooded the back of the 'Jumper. There was so much water, moving in and then out, taking parts of the 'Jumper with it. He felt the energy being expelled as the 'Jumper was thrust forward and away from the two rocks that had been holding it.

He could feel himself shaking in rhythm with the 'Jumper's vibrations. He could barely see out of the view window, so he was acting mainly on instinct and what the automatic scanners could tell him.

It was time to start moving upward. There was a large rock on his left side. He needed to move right and up. The energy was expelling faster than they thought. He needed to angle upward, now!

He pushed the 'Jumper farther upward, until it was moving up horizontally. He could feel the sudden and fast change of pressure hit on his head and make it feel like it was going to explode. He kept pushing up, though. He could hear things around him, but they were irrelevant. The sounds of people yelling and screaming would not help him with the task he was faced with.

He pressed onward, even as he felt the headache he had had for the last several hours intensify by a thousand percent.

He could see something in the view screen. It looked like light, far up ahead. He pushed onward, even harder than before. He could feel the sudden loss of momentum, and could only hope that they would get up far enough for the Daedalus to be able to beam them out.

**A/N-There you go! This chapter was long. It had 5,512 words in it. That's pretty good, huh? Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, and please remember to review, because it makes me feel all glow-y inside. **


	9. When Beam Technology Is Slightly Painful

**A/N-Hey everyone, I'm back! So, here's my next chapter, in which the "unconscious, ****apparently-evil woman" wakes up! I hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer- Unfortunately, none of this that you recognize belongs to me. :(**

Water splashed every which way as the Jumper shot up through the water, looking like a metallic shark trying to eat a passing bird. The evening sun glinted off of the flying ship, giving all watching Jumpers the allusion of a large diamond, left hanging by a wire in the sun. Everyone watching, everyone in Atlantis, and everyone in the orbiting Daedalus held their breath subconsciously, not even realizing they were doing it.

"Can you get a lock?" Col. Steven Caldwell, captain of the Earth starship Daedalus asked the beam tech.

The tech looked at the scanners, his eyebrows furrowed. Mr. Woolsey, Col. Carter, and Dr. Linda Ko, the next highest ranking doctor, stood on the side, next to the door, ready to run to the infirmary when they were beamed up. There was a second where the tech's facial expression just kept getting more and more worried, before it suddenly, in the blink of an eye, turned relieved. He nodded at the captain.

"Beam them out, directly to the infirmary." Caldwell ordered.

The tech nodded and, as Caldwell, Dr. Ko, Col. Carter, and Mr. Woolsey "walked quickly" to the infirmary, he locked on to the thirteen life signs and began the beaming sequence.

**oOo**

Beaming technology is a very convenient thing. It can beam things from thousands of miles or thousands of yards away. It can beam seats, if it can get a lock on them, or people, or even a fish, if one desired to attempt to beam one somewhere. However, as beaming technology is quite an amazing thing, it can also be a bit, well, _painful. _

The entire group, including an unconscious supposedly-evil woman with kidnapping tendencies and a severely injured head scientist of the science department in Atlantis, landed in the infirmary as they were beamed out, except without the chairs and Jumper walls to hold them up. They fell. Hard.

John, Ronon, Teyla, and Lorne and his team all recovered next to immediately and jumped up. Caldwell and Co. arrived just at that moment. As Dr. Ko and her team ran forward to help Ronon and Teyla help Rodney onto a bed, Lorne picked up the unconscious woman and put her on a bed with straps and strapped her in, and Caldwell and the rest of the company went forward to help John and the rest of _his _company.

"Colonels, Mr. Woolsey." John greeted gruffly as he attempted to stand up straight. Sam grabbed his shoulder as he almost fell over.

"John!" Sam smiled a tight smile at him as she helped him, completely without his approval, over to one of the chairs.

Caldwell looked over at Dr. McKay, and then at the unconscious woman strapped onto the bed. He glared slightly before turning back to the other colonel.

"Colonel." He greeted. John nodded respectfully. One of the nurses came over to look over John, and Caldwell and Carter turned away to allow him some personal space.

The two colonels watched as Rodney was rolled over to the surgery section of the infirmary. They watched as Jennifer and Carson refused medical care, opting instead to clean up and climb into some scrubs and go into the surgery area. They watched as nurses gently moved the various people from the Jumper onto beds to be checked out. They watched as Zelenka promptly decided to pass out. They watched as Ronon stared down a nurse who had been trying to do a medical check-up on him. They watched as Teyla smiled tiredly at John and then at the nurse who was helping her. They watched as Lorne's team all took their cue from Lorne himself and allowed the nurses to check them over. They watched as John looked over at Rodney's receding figure on the receding bed. Then only Caldwell watched as Carter walked over to Carson who was still getting ready and asked him how Rodney was. He watched as Carson looked at her, smiles, and said he had high hopes. He watched as Carter looked at him as though she didn't really believe him. He watched as Carson's sincere eyes met hers, and as the doctor told her to leave this to them. And then he watched as Carter came back over, smiled tightly at him and then the two of them walked out of the infirmary with a single last look back.

**oOo**

They had been in surgery for several hours, but Jennifer told them that that was to be expected since they wanted to work on as much as they could at one time. But still, it was a very long wait, especially when one found it hard to fall asleep; despite being so exhausted they might collapse.

John found out that, yes, he did have a concussion, and that, yes, he was dehydrated and had suffered some minor blood loss. Other than that, he was alright. Teyla and Ronon had both suffered some minor bruising, and Teyla had a large cut in her forehead and another on her arm, neither severe. Lorne's team was also only afflicted with minor cuts, as was Nurse Van Der Pole and Zelenka. The unconscious woman had several bruises and cuts on her body, although it was impossible to tell whether they had come from the previous battle or from the more recent Jumper incident.

John walked into the conference room in the Daedalus, which was where they were still residing since Rodney was still in surgery, and everyone had neither thought nor had any want to go back down to Atlantis. They had, of course, sent the unconscious woman down to an infirmary isolation room. He sat down on one of the seats, across from Sam and next to Teyla and Ronon. Col. Caldwell and Mr. Woolsey were on either side of the table, opposite each other.

"Colonel, any word about Rodney?" Sam asked quietly, her eyes showing the worry she still held for any one that had ever been under her command.

"Nothing new, Sam." John replied. Sam nodded before turning to Caldwell and nodding that they could start the meeting. The captain then turned to all the assorted peoples.

"Colonel Sheppard, there wasn't anyone else in the Jumper when you got there?" Col. Caldwell asked.

"No, sir. There wasn't." John replied.

"Well, according to all evidence, there had to have been another person in that Jumper. That means that that person got out before you got there. Of course there is the chance that that other person fell out of the Jumper during the fight. We cannot, however, take that chance. We have to assume that this second personage is loose in the underwater base. As we've already found out, they obviously have the gene. It might just be one of them, or both of them. Still we have to assume that he or she can fly Jumpers. Which means he or she can get to the surface." Caldwell said. Everyone else nodded or simply looked at him.

This fell into the category of if-this-is-not-a-worst-case-scenario-I-don't-know-what-is.

**oOo**

The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a white ceiling. She moved her eyes around carefully, immediately aware of the binds on her wrists and ankles. She was in a room with a view screen on the upper half of one of the walls. _An isolation room, _was what her training told her the room was. She could smell medicines. She could feel the soft material that covered her body that was not her own clothing material. There was no one else present in the room, unless, of course, they were hiding on the floor, which would be an incredibly ridiculous thing to do. She saw a camera placed next to her head, and realized she would have to be even more careful.

She had been caught because she had not been fast enough. She had believed that _he _would honor their agreement. That was a failure on her part, a mistake she made that would not be made again. She remembered Dr. Mckay falling to the ground with a knife wound. She wondered, unemotionally, whether he had survived. She knew there were other people on the great city with the ability and knowledge to work with Ancient devices, but she had ascertained, after several weeks of observation, that he was the best at it. She only took the best. But if he died, he would no longer be the best; therefore she could take one of the other scientists she had seen. It would all work out eventually.

She heard one of the Atlantean doors open and someone step inside. She quickly closed her eyes, relying on her other senses to determine who this person was. There was a slight noise at the tray that she had seen next to her. She felt a hand on her forehead, and then she felt the tube in her arm that she had heard them call an _IV_ being held up. She could hear the scratch of a writing utensil on paper. _A nurse or doctor, then. _She heard the piece of metal that the paper was placed on be placed down. She could hear the footsteps moving away. She opened her eyes, wary of the camera, and took a quick look outside of the room as the doors were opened. She could only see one guard, but she knew there would be _at least _two, possibly even more since they knew, vaguely, what she was capable of.

All of this knowledge she stored safely away, to be called upon when she escaped. She was no fool. She knew what to do when she was captured. She knew how to kill quickly and then escape silently. She had been taught by the best fighters and scientists on her planet. She was considered one of the best conspirators, fighters, kidnappers, and assassins in several different sects of this galaxy. She knew how to get out. She knew when there was a chance. However, she also knew to not underestimate these people. Especially not when they had all the technologies of this great city at their disposal.

**oOo**

John and company watched the sleeping woman from the view window of the control room. She was completely motionless, but she would be waking up soon.

After several hours of surgery, Rodney was well enough to be beamed down to the infirmary in Atlantis for another few surgeries. The doctors had assured them, quite relieved themselves, that Rodney would be okay after surgery if there were no residual side effects. Uncomfortable, yes, but okay.

The two doctors had gone into this long explanation about a type of poison on the knife that had caused the numbness in Rodney's side, and about contrecoup injuries caught early enough, and about a few other things that had to do with his sprained leg and his sprained wrist and his head wounds. John could easily understand most of what they said, but the main thing that went through his brain was that Rodney would survive, even if he wasn't completely out of the woods yet.

Mr. Woolsey had forced both teams as well as Dr. Zelenka and the nurse to get some rest, even if just for a while. He had tried to tell the doctors, but they said they would just be alternating between themselves, because they needed to watch Rodney.

John and his team had rested for about two hours before they gone to visit Rodney. Carson, who was taking a shift and letting Jennifer rest, was loathe to let them in but eventually was persuaded, under the condition that they leave after a few moments.

The three teammates went into the room to see their other unconscious team mate. He still looked bruised, but much more neat than before, and more comfortable looking. He was on an oxygen mask until he woke up, and he had a few IV's in his arm. Rodney looked pale, but much better than before. They each took a quick turn examining their friend for themselves before leaving.

They had gone straight to the observation room where the trio had found Caldwell, Woolsey, and Carter, sitting and, apparently, talking. They discussed where the second personage might have gone, trying not to miss anything.

Then the woman woke up. John wouldn't even have noticed, though, since the woman was hiding it very well. She had kept her eyes mostly closed. A nurse went in, and the woman stayed perfectly still. It was just when the nurse left, right when the doors were completely open, that the woman's eyes opened just right enough for John to see, completely on accident, of course. He had been blind staring at the screen when Sam called his name and shook him from his thoughts. Then he had seen her eyes, a deep hazel, just barely open.

"…I wonder when she'll wake up, though. I would prefer it to be sooner rather than later." Sam was saying to the rest of the group.

"Well, she's awake now." John added into the conversation passively.

They blinked at him, having not quite heard what he had said.

"What?" Caldwell asked, his voice slightly gruff.

"She's awake." John said again. The rest of them looked at the view screens. She had once again closed her eyes and was lying perfectly still.

"She doesn't look awake to me." Ronon said.

"That's because she's trying to make us think she's asleep. I saw her eyes open for a sec though." John said, almost defensively. They looked back again.

"We should call the docs, then, shouldn't we?" Sam said. John nodded. She nodded back and stood up, hitting her radio. John looked back at the rest of the group, all of whom were watching the view screen. Ronon, Teyla, and John stood up and walked out, following Sam.

"She didn't look awake to me." Ronon said again.

"Well she was." John said, knowing Ronon was just pulling his buttons. Teyla hid an exasperated smile behind a hand.

"She didn't look like it, though." Ronon continued.

"Well she _was_" John frowned at Ronon, pursing his lips slightly. Ronon just shook his head.

"She _was_!" John said.

Teyla shook her head.

**oOo**

She heard voices as the door opened, and she knew. There was no point to continue pretending. They knew that she wasn't asleep. She sighed and opened her eyes.

Turning her head slowly, she heard them stop walking, and then continue, some of them hesitantly, others, forceful. She smirked. She had made someone _mad_.

They walked up to her, each face holding a separate expression. She had seen all of them but one during her weeks walking around the city, unseen. The man she hadn't seen she had heard of. His name was Col. Caldwell. Colonel being the rank, and Caldwell, apparently, the name after the first. She smiled a cocky smile at them as the neared her. The one known as Ronon glared at her, his eyebrows drawn together. The one known as Col. Sheppard was more subtle than him, while Col. Caldwell barely changed his expression at all. She simply smirked at them.

"Who are you?" The Col. Sheppard asked her, no, demanded of her.

"My, my, what an aggressive attitude you have, Col. Sheppard." She replied, feeling satisfaction when their glares deepened.

"Where's your partner?" He asked. She closed her eyes briefly: they knew about _him. _

"I work alone, Colonel." She answered.

"Well, it looks like you changed up your style this time." He said, his anger starting to reach his voice.

"Perhaps I did. That does not mean that I'll tell you anything."

"Well, there are other methods to get information…"

"Colonel!" The man in the formal suit stepped up and in front of the colonel. He was what they called a "diplomat". From what she had been able to gather, this meant that he negotiated and preferred peace to violence. She thought he was weak. Yet they made him their leader. Though, she had also gathered that these people had many friends and trade partners, and preferred them to enemies. Perhaps he was considered great in their society. They were a very strange people.

"Perhaps we could talk through this. In our society, you have done a great crime by kidnapping and harming Dr. Mckay. Therefore, you would have to be punished, despite the fact that you are not one of us. If you tell us what we want to know, I could perhaps lessen the punishment." The Mr. Woolsey told her. She listened with narrowed eyes. She had seen nothing of a real punishment on this great city. But perhaps back on their homeworld they did have great punishments. In her mind pictures of torture, weeks without any good amount of food, hard labor, and years in a dark cell ran wild. She could always escape, but…

"What is it you want to know, Mister?" She asked, calling him by what she belied was his rank.

"We want to know who you are, where you came from, why you kidnapped McKay, where you got those Ancient devices, who your partner is, and anything else we can think up while you're talking." Col. Sheppard answered this. His voice was clipped and fast.

"I will have to think of this…_generous _offer." She said, her sarcasm leaking through on the word _generous._ She couldn't help it. It had not been the best couple of days. The Col. Sheppard, who she believed had quite an odd name, glared at her some more, before turning on his heels and leaving the room. He was followed by the other male Colonel, the female Colonel, the male Mister, the Specialist, and the Woman Warrior.

As the door closed, she leaned back and closed her eyes, thinking of what they said. They, even without the Ancient's help, were more advanced than her. Therefore, they most likely had better prison and punishment facilities. Not to mention the fact that she would be on a planet she had never been to before, nor even heard of before she came here. If they lessoned her punishment and prison time, perhaps she could find some way to get off that planet. She smiled, caring not that she was about to expose _him _to them, or the planet she found the device on to them. It mattered not to her.

She would tell them when they came back. Until then, some rest was in order.

And, though she closed her eyes, her mind stayed awake and ready, and her senses alert.

**A/N-Yay! Another chapter completed. Just to warn you, because I would feel bad if I didn't, chapters will be longer in the update. There is a whole lot going on here, so I'm almost always busy. this is both a :) and a :( So, just hang in there if you want to see who this _he _is. Oh, and REVIEW!This makes me feel happy.**


	10. When A Deal Is Made That Makes Her Talk

**A/N-And...Here's another one! Yay. Okay, continue on.**

**Disclaimer-Alright, I've said this before. Must you keep making me realize the hard truth that I try so hard to forget? I don't own any of this. **

They walked into the isolation room to see the previously unconscious woman staring at them with evil, hazel eyes. Though she was actually quite beautiful, there was something about the way she looked that made her not only seem evil, but also a little scary. Ronon said that she had the demeanor of a warrior, and Teyla said she had the eyes of an assassin. John agreed wholeheartedly to both.

"Well, have you agreed?" John asked her, keeping his voice emotionless.

"Almost." She replied, her eyes narrowing. John in turn narrowed his own eyes in a questioning manner.

"I tell you everything you want to know, and in exchange, you send me to be imprisoned on my home world." She said, a gleam in her eyes. John turned away from her and looked quizzically at Col.'s Caldwell and Carter, Mr. Woolsey, Dr. Carson (Dr. Jennifer was staying with Rodney), Ronon, and Teyla. Mr. Woolsey and Col. Carter nodded. But Caldwell gave John a meaningful glance and then nodded. John nodded that he understood.

"Actually, how about this. You tell us everything we want to know, and in exchange, we won't let Ronon" He pointed at Ronon, "loose on you and let him kill you. Instead, we'll send you to one of the planets in this galaxy that seem to _really _want to see you." John said. He saw her starting to shake her head, and continued speaking. "Look, it's better than you being in an entirely different galaxy, isn't it?" When she hesitated, he knew he had her.

She nodded reluctantly, almost angrily. John nodded back as both of the other colonels stepped up to question her with him.

"Who are you, where are you from, and how and where did you find those devices that made you "invisible"?" Carter asked.

The woman breathed in deeply. "My name is Kelina. I am from Corash. I found the devices during one of my…_jobs_." She didn't have to specify what kind of jobs she did—they already knew. "I was working with _him_ when we found them." She spat out the _him _as though it was a dirty word. John glanced at Carter who looked at him without turning her head. Kelina didn't seem to like her partner very much.

"We found them in what appeared to be a cave. But it was not. There were Great Ancient devices there. We were afraid to touch them. For all we knew, the Great Ancient's had built weapons there, and we would be destroyed the moment we touched them." John looked around at the others. _Great Ancients? _He mouthed to them. Carter and Caldwell just shook their heads, while Ronon smirked lightly. "But then _he _saw something that was shaped and colored like a palm-sized stone. He picked it up. He saw that one side was flat, and laid that side on his arm, placing it there with his left hand. Suddenly he disappeared. I could not see him. One moment he was standing in front of me, the next he was not. He then took off the stone, and I could see him again.

"We learned that these stones were invisibility devices. However, almost all of them were broken. We took as many as we could carry back to the place that we had been staying and then we tried to fix them. We used Nirvan Stick and Gaesha Cloth, but neither would hold it together for as long as we wished."

"Nirvan Stick and Gaesha Cloth?" John asked, not exactly at Kelina.

"Nirvan Stick is a sticky substance that will stick things together once dried. Gaesha Cloth is the sticky substance placed on a type of cloth. Both work very well for fixing broken things."

John nodded and turned back to the others. "So, like Duct Tape and glue." Sam nodded, almost sarcastically. John turned back to the woman.

"Then we heard that a team of four people carrying items that looked as though they were from the Great Ancient had entered the village and wished to trade. We went and saw them. Both of us immediately saw that they were much more advanced than we were, though none of them appeared to be particularly smart. We decided to go back through the Ancestral Ring with them, under the veil of the Great Ancient's device, to see if there was anyone on their home planet who could fix the devices."

"We came here and we were amazed that this was truly the city of the Great Ancients. We both hid here, away from the eyes of the peoples that had stayed here for so long. We learned where the science station was and went there. We found out who the leader of the science station was and we watched him. We caused problems all around the city by cutting what you call "wires" and damaging the box that held the power source the leader scientist called a "Zed PM". We watched as he fixed things, and then as he yelled at those under him. We decided we liked him. We thought that perhaps we could persuade him to join us willingly. Those thoughts were quickly destroyed, however, when one of our problems caused a great overload in a power area of the city, and a great many people were trapped inside the room that the overload would occur in, including the Dr. McKay. Instead of saving himself, like we would have done and like we thought he would have done, he saved them, waiting to get out until everyone else was safe.

"We decided that we would have to take him by force. It was _he _that stabbed your Dr. McKay. He tried to double cross me. But it was I who was flying the Great Ship. I dove it into the waters and near that underwater base that the Great Ancients had created. We fought. It was all I could do to land the Great Ship. Then we accidently hit the Great Crystals that controlled the Great Ship, locking us in the back area and Dr. McKay in the front. We fought it out. I believe that we both went down at the same time.

"That is what happened." She finished sarcastically.

John looked at her with steely eyes. The whole add-great-to-anything-Ancient was getting annoying.

"And who is this…_him?" _

She looked at him, her eyes showing the first small sign of fear that he had seen on her. It was quickly engulfed by anger and spite, but John was sure he had seen it.

"He is called Sal Black."

John heard Teyla gasp, and Ronon tensed beside him.

"Col. Sheppard, I wish to speak with you." Teyla said, surprise in her voice. John nodded and turned toward the doors. He asked no questions, knowing Teyla would tell him what was wrong when they were away from Kelina.

**oOo**

They entered the debriefing room and sat down. Teyla was fidgeting, and Ronon looked angry—well, angrier than before.

"What is it, Teyla?" John asked immediately.

Everyone else turned to her. She looked at them.

"Sal Black is known throughout the galaxy. His name is one that is feared. They say he will work for anyone, whether it is a person from a poor village, a leader of an entire world, or even a wraith. There are stories that tell of him working for a wraith queen." Teyla looked angry now.

"He will do almost anything for enough money, or for something that he wishes to acquire. He has killed, kidnapped, assassinated, stole, and burned down entire villages. He has been a spy amongst peoples, even in a wraith hive ship, if the stories are true. And even if those are not, what people have seen him do is bad enough that he sparks fear in both peaceful and warlike peoples alike."

"There are many different descriptions in many different areas of this galaxy. I do not believe anyone has ever truly seen him, even when he comes right out to talk with people." Teyla finished.

"He's dangerous." Ronon added.

John looked at them, and then at the two colonels and the two doctors (Jennifer had joined them). They looked back, Jennifer looking slightly afraid, the others looking grim.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to find him sooner rather than later"

**oOo**

He awoke to the white ceiling of the infirmary. It was quiet. That almost scared him. Almost, because he could hear a few things. Like quiet voices in the background. The squeak of a chair being pushed back. The sound of running water as nurses and doctors washed their hands. The quiet _swoosh _of a door opening and closing. The sounds of the Atlantean infirmary. He had been here several times before. He knew these sounds. They comforted him rather than scared him. It was a different kind of quiet. It was a good kind of quiet.

He heard footsteps coming towards him. There were quite a few people there. It sounded almost like they were running towards him. Why were they running? It was making a lot of unwanted noise that he didn't really want. Then, beneath the sounds of their footsteps, he heard something else. It was a beeping, and it was getting faster and louder by the second.

Then he became aware of the severe pain in his side. What was going on?

"Rodney? Can you hear me? I need you to take a deep breath. Rodney, a deep breath. Come on." That was Jennifer.

A deep breath? Well, alright then.

He breathed in deeply.

And then he proceeded to choke.

"That's good, Rodney. Good job. Just, keep breathing, alright?"

Keep breathing. Yes. Because breathing is important. It keeps people alive. Alive is good.

But it had been getting difficult to breathe. He found that it was actually much more comfortable, not to mention more restful, to just stop breathing. However, the doctors seemed to think that he needed to continue breathing. It was quite annoying, really.

They kept asking him to breathe, to move his head, to do this, and then that. He was just _so _tired. He just wanted to rest.

**oOo**

He had crashed. He had just stopped breathing. One minute he was looking her in the eye, the next he wasn't breathing anymore. They had had to shock him to restart his heart, though it was his lungs that were really affected.

It had scared her. They had thought he would be alright. The one time they leave, even if only for a few minutes, he crashes. Seriously. When they were with him, he was fine. When they left, he was not. The irony of it was horrible. It turned out that they during the major surgeries they had had to perform, as well as the fact that both of the main doctors were tired, dehydrated, and injured, they had missed some internal bleeding. This had spread into his lungs, causing him to stop breathing a few times, only to cough up the blood, breathe again, and start the cycle all over again, until his heart was taxed enough to send him into v-fib. It had happened so fast. Blood was pouring into his lung system, unchecked and uncontrolled.

They had sent him into surgery, stitched him up, and then thoroughly checked to see if there were any side effects or injuries that they hadn't seen. There were not.

Jennifer sat in her office, the door closed to give her some privacy. She cradled her head in her hands and closed her eyes. She was so tired. It had been days since she had slept properly, and then there was the whole kidnapping thing, the I'm-not-sure-if-this-is-a-failure-or-not rescue, the Jumper incident, and then the theres-a-galaxy-wide-known-assassin-and-mass-murderer-loose-somewhere-on-this-planet thing and the Rodney-almost-died-again thing. It had been a stressful week.

"Jennifer?" Jennifer looked up at her name being called. There was John, Teyla, and Ronon, probably there to check up on Rodney.

Jennifer breathed in deeply before planting a smile on her face and looking towards the closed door of her office.

There was a knock on the door, short and polite, yet almost eager sounding.

"Come in." Jennifer said.

The trio walked in, almost uncertainly. John smiled at Jennifer while Teyla came and put a comforting hand on her own.

"Hey guys!" Jennifer said, a little too excitedly. John looked at her strangely, then opened the blinds to the windows and looked out. The windows opened to the infirmary. Rodney was lying in a bed not too far away from the window, his monitors beeping steadily.

"How is he?" John asked, his face still looking toward Rodney.

"He's…He's doing okay. He's not out of the woods yet, but we're pretty sure he'll be fine." Jennifer said, trying to keep her voice steady.

Ronon nodded, his steady eyes on Jennifer. Teyla squeezed her hand reassuringly. John just kept looking out at Rodney.

"Dr. Keller, Col. Sheppard, you're needed in Isolation Room 2 immediately! We have a medical emergency!" Jennifer looked at John, both of them confused. Jennifer rose quickly from her seat and ran out the door, telling the nurses that there was a medical emergency.

John followed quickly behind her, both running towards the Isolation Room.

**oOo**

When they arrived, Carter quickly moved aside to show Jennifer Kelina, who wasn't breathing. Jennifer ran towards her and started performing CPR until the defibrillator arrived.

They shocked her several times, trying to bring her back to life. It didn't work, though.

Finally, Jennifer was forced to pull back, her eyes downcast for losing another life, even one spent so horribly.

She called it and then covered the body and sent it down for an autopsy.

"We need to talk." Jennifer told Mr. Woolsey and Col. Carter. The two nodded and called a debriefing in, coincidentally, the debriefing room for an hour and a half later.

**oOo**

Sam walked into the debriefing room and sat down next to Col. Caldwell and Col. Sheppard. A few moments afterwards, Jennifer and Carson walked in, both speaking in urgent, quiet tones.

"Doctors." Mr. Woolsey nods at them. They look at him and then at each other as they sit down.

"What is it, Jennifer?" Carter asks.

Jennifer looks at her, her eyes betraying the worry that she was hiding.

"The lab results came back on Kelina's body."

"That was fast." John interrupted.

"Yes, because I already knew what to look for. There was a small prick in her wrist that I accidentally saw." Jennifer said.

Everyone else looked at her expectantly.

"She was poisoned. It's not a poison I recognize, but it is very close to several found on earth. It caused her to go into cardiac arrest. We couldn't have saved her even if we had been there from the start." Jennifer looked down at this and then looked back up, her eyes sad.

"Well, what exactly, does this mean?" Mr. Woolsey asked, his eyes wide in alarm.

"It means," John said, "That someone murdered her." He looked over at the other two colonels. They both nodded at him.

"Who? You don't think…?" Mr. Woolsey continued, his eyes continuing to get bigger.

"Well, it is the only plausible explanation, Mr. Woolsey." Carter said, looking over at him.

"What is?" Mr. Woolsey said, although Carter could tell he already knew.

"Sal Black is in the city."

**TBC. **

**A/N-Sooooooo, how did you like it? I'm sure there are many thoughts running through your head right now, maybe good, maybe bad, and you know how annoying it is to keep that all in there. I mean, thats a lot of excess information. Why don't you just write them down as a review? yes, what a good idea.**


	11. When Blonde Is Ominous

**A/N-Hey! So, here's the next chapter! Well, I really like this one, and, not to sound wierd and cliche and over-ly WII bolling man ish, i hope you'll like it to. **

**Warning-this chapter has some kind of creepy parts, and there is murder. Just because I'm alright with it doesn't mean everyone is. Although if you're watching Stargate with all of the guns and Wraith and you're not okay with this, you're weird. **

**Disclaimer-This does not belong to me. The story idea does (SO NO ONE STEAL IT WITHOUT MY PERMISSION) but the peoples are not. :)**

Rodney stirred slightly, alerting John to the fact that he was awake. Rodney opened his eyes slowly, almost hesitantly. John smiled over at him as he stood up from where he had been sitting on the hard-back chair next to the bed. Rodney opened his mouth to speak, but John shushed him.

"Just wait a minute Rodney. You still have a tube down your throat. I'll get someone to take it out, alright?" Rodney nodded a little as John looked around for a nurse or a doctor.

He walked over to Jennifer's office and saw that she had fallen asleep in her chair, her head resting in her arms on the table. She had told him to wake her up when Rodney awoke, but John knew how tired she was. She needed to rest. He'd wake her up later, he decided. He turned around and spotted a nurse. Beckoning her over, he motioned to Rodney. She turned and looked at him and, seeing that he was awake, she walked over and smiled down at him.

"Dr. Mckay, this is going to be a bit uncomfortable. When I pull this out, I need to you breathe in deeply, okay?" Rodney nodded. John looked away as the nurse pulled out the tube and as Rodney breathed in. He always hated that part.

He walked over and sat down next to Rodney. The scientist turned his head until it was facing John. Rodney looked exhausted and in pain.

"How are you feeling?" John asked. Rodney looked over at him and sent him a how-do-you-think look mixed with his and-there's-another-idiot look. It almost made John laugh. "Just answer the question."

Rodney did some sort of a weird head bob mixed with a strange half nod half head-shake. It translated well. Alive, but not all that great. John nodded at him and bit his lower lip.

"Well, we interrogated that girl. Her name is Kelina. _Was _Kelina." John closed his eyes briefly at the last part. At Rodney's inquisitive look, John proceeded to tell the scientist all about the last couple of hours.

It was a long conversation filled with much nodding, trying and failing to speak on Rodney's part, and much talking and shushing on John's part.

**oOo**

Jennifer woke up in a slow, sleepy daze, a luxury she hadn't been allowed in a very long time. She looked around her office, wondering why _exactly_ she was in her office, but not really caring. She leaned back in her chair and stretched. It took her several seconds—several blissful, quiet, calm seconds—to remember what had happened and realize that she had not—_had not!—_meant to fall asleep. She practically jumped up from her seat and quite literally tripped over her own feet and a roll of tape that had fallen onto the ground and fell, quite ungracefully, flat onto her face.

She looked up annoyed and sat up slowly, a hand making its way to her now-sore head. She closed her eyes and allowed herself a few moments to piece herself together.

_Alright, you probably didn't sleep too long, Jennifer. I'm sure you'll be fine. I mean, nothing could have gone wrong. Someone would have woken me, or I would have heard. And I told John to wake me if Rodney woke up, so he's probably still asleep. And—Ah! See, you can hear John talking, probably flirting with a nurse or something. But, why would he be telling her about Jumper problems…He DIDN'T!_

Jennifer's eyes snapped open as it registered in her brain just _who _John was talking to. She jumped up, this time with a little more grace, and snapped open the door. She walked out and toward Rodney's bed.

Two nurses and another doctor walked over to her and immediately turned around, their eyes wide. Jennifer did not get angry often.

"JOHN!" John jumped what looked like 10 feet to the tired Jennifer but was more accurately only about two, perhaps three. He didn't exactly turn around, but instead just turned his head and then cowered. Rodney looked at him, confused and still kind of bleary from the drugs.

"I thought I told you, very specifically I might add, to tell me when Rodney woke up." Her voice shook slightly, but whether it was from the lasting effects of sleepiness or anger they couldn't tell.

"Well, you were asleep, and you seemed so tired, and nothing was going wrong, and—RODNEY MADE ME DO IT!" John pointed furiously at Rodney who looked confused, then annoyed, then defensive, then accusative. The funny thing was his facial expressions changed from one to the other in about five seconds, maybe less.

"I did…not." Rodney choked out in a whisper. Then he opened his eyes really wide and put on a really pathetic looking facial expression. Jennifer took one look at it, his bruises and all, and glared back at John. John attempted to do his best but-I'm-a-little-angel face. Jennifer didn't move an inch.

She pointed toward the door of the infirmary. "Out." She said, her eyes tired and slightly angry. John looked back at the almost-smirking Rodney and glared, before turning around and leaving the infirmary. It was only after he had left the infirmary that he spared a small smile.

Rodney was still smirking slightly when Jennifer turned around and looked at him. Rodney's smirk disappeared immediately.

"Don't think you're getting off that easily, Rodney McKay." Rodney shook his head slightly. Jennifer visibly deflated and then smiled tiredly at him. Rodney smiled back slightly as Jennifer began to check his vitals. This smile disappeared when she turned around and looked at him, a demonic smile on her face, holding in her hands a very large needle.

**oOo**

He quietly ran through a long hallway in the Great City, his feet making not even the slightest of sounds on the ground. He was limping slightly, but barely even noticeably. He had underestimated that woman. He had thought her slower than she was, and that had caused him letting her knife him in the leg. But, he learned from his mistakes. He would definitely not underestimate the people in this place. He, unlike Kelina, had seen these Earthlings before they had started their mission. He had seen them fight with their fast bullets in their large guns. He had seen the large one and the woman fight in hand to hand combat. They were very fast. He had seen the leader. An excellent marksman. And the scientist was quick in a bad situation, something that most of the scientists he had seen before were not.

And after they had started their mission he had watched their trainings. They were quick and efficient and, what he considered to be one of their greatest strengths, innovative. The soldiers knew how to compromise, like so many soldiers in other worlds did not.

This would be one of his greatest challenges yet.

He heard a noise behind him and quickly rolled into the shadows that three large, wooden boxes created on the ground. Two marines, as they called them, were patrolling. They were walking in a carefree manner, talking to each other in hushed tones of something called "Brave Heart". His quick mind picked up from what they were saying that this was one of those videos that they watched on their large screens.

He watched them as they passed him, their unprotected backs in full view. One hand slowly reached down to the easy-to-access knife at his side. It would be so easy to sneak up on them and slit the first one's throat, and then stab the other in the heart when he turned. So simple, so easy. He could practically _feel _the hot, thick, _red _liquid fall onto his hands and onto the floor, smell the sickly smell of death he had come to expect, almost wait for. They already knew he was here, so finding two dead marines would only entice fear in their hearts. He smiled a small demonic smile and began to move forward.

Only a few steps away from them he stopped short. Someone was coming. If it was only one or two others he could kill them as well without making too much noise. It would be easy, and his knife would enjoy the extra blood. He took a step back into the shadows of the wall and waited.

"Paul!" He breathed out angrily. There were six others. He could not possibly kill them all without making noise enough to alert those in the surrounding area.

The marine known as Paul turned to the six others, his comrade turning as well. A smile lit both of their faces.

"Hey."

"When are you done with your shift?" A female with the six asked.

"Uh, just a few minutes." Paul's comrade checked his device that they called a watch.

"Great. We're just about ready to start movie night. We need to head over the farther Rec' room to get some cord we need. The T.V. broke." A male with the six said, his facial features turning into confusion as he spoke. Paul frowned slightly.

"How come all the important stuff is in the Rec' room on the completely unused side of the E & S side of the city?" The others shrugged.

He knew what these initials meant: explored and safe. He did something close to a smile again. Oh, how he wanted to kill them and make everyone unsure of how "safe" this city truly was.

He watched as the six joined the two patrolling marines, apparently already "heading the same way, dawg", whatever that utterly ridiculous and unneeded comment meant.

They walked away and he slunk back into the shadows and headed the opposite direction, snarling quietly to himself. He walked into an unused room. Looking around he headed towards the darkest part of the floor. He sat down, placing his clean knife next to him. No one would see him unless they walked straight up to him, and then they would drop to the floor with a knife in their heart, and no one else would know.

He sat back, his eyes closed but the rest of his senses alert to any small noise. He smiled to himself again in the knowledge that soon he would be able to kill as many as he wanted, only to leave this place with the devices and steal and kill some more.

He leaned his head forward, his eyes dark with what appeared to be dark circles under his eyes but were truly simply the shadows of his face creating an evil feel. Small wisps of blonde hair fell across his ears and bright, deep, evil green eyes. His entire figure, especially his face, screamed demon. He loved it.

**oOo**

"I think we should double the patrolling units. It would be better to have four people together than just two, especially considering all of the dark corridors they have to patrol." John said. Carter and Caldwell nodded, completely agreeing. This Sal Black sounded like a professional, and they weren't taking any chances.

"We should also have people patrolling all sectors with a much smaller in-between time. It wouldn't be hard for someone to sneak in to the sleeping corridors or the labs undetected, especially since we have no way of tracking him." Sam said, her voice sounding almost worried, but more authoritative than anything. The other two colonels nodded.

They were in a meeting consisting of SGA1, Col.'s Caldwell and Carter, Dr. Zelenka (since Rodney couldn't be present), Carson and Jennifer, and Mr. Woolsey.

"Dr. Zelenka, is there any way to track this Sal Black?" Mr. Woolsey asked the slightly ruffled scientist. He shook his head jerkily, pushing his glasses up as he typed on his computer.

"Other than putting everyone in one room and looking for the oddbole, no."

"And we couldn't do that either, Mr. Woolsey." Sam said before Mr. Woolsey could say anything. "If he's smart at all he'll just follow the crowd quietly."

Mr. Woolsey looked at a complete loss. Then he straightened out, his form changing to that of an authoritative figure. "Well then, we'll just have to proceed with immense caution, do all of the military precautions that you have suggested, and hope that he makes a mistake. I'll make it a rule that no one goes anywhere alone, and that they try to only go out of the way of the immediate and heavily patrolled areas of the city as rarely as possible. And," He continued when he saw Zelenka open his mouth, "We'll send military guards with scientist when they had jobs to do outside of the city."

This may sound incredibly extreme, but they thought it necessary. The military personnel had worked with or against mass murderer and hit men before. They knew that when they thought they couldn't get what they wanted they started to kill. They just didn't want anyone to die when some extra precautions could have saved them. Plus, it was a temporary predicament. The man would have to come out eventually, or make a mistake. They would catch him eventually.

**oOo**

He moved silently forward, like an invisible ghost in his silence. No one had seen him, despite the fact that many had passed him in corridors and even in some large rooms. He had always had the ability to be invisible, even when in front of a hundred people. It hadn't been great when he had wanted to be seen, but it was wonderful now that silence allowed him to do basically anything he wanted.

Then he saw him. A single man, a scientist, standing in the corner of a corridor, a hand-held computer device in his hands. No weapon. It would be so easy.

He felt the need to kill boiling inside of him, practically overflowing. He felt the need to spread anger, hatred, and, most of all, fear through the population of the Great City. His eyes briefly went red in anticipation. No one could stop him now.

He moved forward, still as silent and invisible as a ghost. He took out his double-edged, silver blade, holding it firmly in his hard, calloused hand. It was so simple. He waited until the scientist turned around, facing the wall, before moving in quickly. He looked down both sides of the corridor as he advanced on the scientist in the corner. There was no one there. This scientist had gone to the very edge of what they considered the "safe section"; not wanting to wait for any guards, he had gone alone.

He smiled that evil smile of his and then he grabbed the scientist's shoulder and twisted him around. The scientist looked confused for a moment, then annoyed, obviously thinking that he was someone else. Then, as he lifted the knife upward and brought his other hand down on the man's mouth, fear flooded his eyes. He brought the knife down hard into the scientist's throat. As the dark red blood oozed out, he continued to press in the knife. He felt a deep, horrible joy come to him as he saw the panic in the man's eyes. Then, in half a second, all of the scientist's life left his eyes, zooming away to a place that he, the knife-wielder, would never go. The man went limp in his arms, and he dropped him like a sack of dirt. The life he had just taken was nothing. He walked away, slightly drunk with the horrible pleasure that came with each kill.

He was almost reckless as he cleaned his blade on the lab coat he had taken from the man. He felt something drip from his blonde hair and grabbed it with his now-clean-but-previously-bloody hand. There was blood in his hair. This made him smile again, evilly.

It was done. The scientist would be found eventually, and fear would strike havoc in the minds of the civilian personnel. He stretched his neck, the popping sound oddly awakening to him, alerting him to the fact that he was not, indeed, invincible and that he needed to hide.

Still, he smiled as he settled down somewhere. He was as close to invincible as they came.

**oOo**

They found him in the early hours of the morning. He had been stabbed deeply in the throat. Atlantis' number one team turned away from the scene in utter horror and anger. It hit John that someone had been killed, no, _murdered _under his watch. It hit Ronon that this place he had come to hold in high esteem had been housing someone that Ronon would kill in a second, if only to bring a bit of closure to the murdered souls. It hit Teyla because she had come to think of these people much like her own, and she couldn't imagine one of her people being killed like that. It hit Rodney because Dr. Jay Gibson was an amazing scientist and a mechanical expert. He had saved many lives with his quick thinking and had made many laugh with his sense of humor. Rodney felt the deaths of every single one of his people heavily. But this, this was just horrid. Rodney was angry.

He had forced the doctors to let him come in a wheel chair. At first they refused, adamant that he didn't need to see that sort of thing in his present weakened state. He had just looked at them. This surprised them all; they had been expecting him to yell. He didn't. He just said that he needed to see exactly what happened. There was a very open looking intensity in his eyes that made some of the nurses cringe.

Needless to say, they let him go.

**oOo**

The briefing that morning was very forlorn. They were all very sad, what with all that was going on. And there was quite a bit of unbridled anger running through everyone. They were all itching to just catch him and get him _out. _

One good thing, or at least not a bad thing, came out of this, though. People now decided it would be best to travel in packs of twos and threes. Military and non-military personnel were grouping together, thinking that that was the safest. John, Caldwell, and Sam weren't sure that two people together would make much of a difference.

John walked away from that debriefing feeling much like he had after the debriefing in which they found that Rodney was, in fact, missing. After making sure that everyone had someone with them, he headed off to his quarters, alone but alert to everything around him.

John, on his way to his quarters, saw three people gently comforting a young woman who was crying, all sitting in one of the small rec' rooms. John grimaced. Her name was Sally Fisherman. She was engaged Dr. Gibson.

Just as John was turning away, she caught his eye. There was sadness and fear very imminent in her green eyes, but more than that there was loss. No anger. Just loss. That made John feel like running. But he didn't. He nodded to Sally, and she nodded back.

John continued down the hallway and just walked. He didn't even realize that he had walked past his turn off, or that he wasn't quite so alert anymore, or that the mass of people was beginning to be a much smaller mass, and then not a mass at all. He was lost in his own thoughts.

He just kept going, turning here and there, sometimes making a circle, sometimes not. He didn't even notice when he passed a dark figure with blonde hair. At least he wouldn't have noticed if that afore-mentioned dark figure with blonde hair hadn't accidently stepped on a small, dead leaf that had fallen off of one of the plants that were stationed here and there.

John was jolted back into reality. He swerved around, thinking it was just another scientist or marine, but for some reason doubting that thought. His doubt was founded. It wasn't a marine, or a scientist. At least not one that he had seen before, and he had seen them all.

The man in front of him—Sal Black—looked at him, smiled some weird, evil-looking smile, and then ran the opposite direction. It caught John completely off guard, and so for a moment, he just stood there, completely still and out of it. Then his military training kicked in and he was running after him and hitting his radio.

"Hey, I've just ran into Sal Black. Send some marines down to level 6, section 13." There was a moment of silence on the other end.

"They're on their way, sir." The tech said. John nodded, though no one could see him. It was just the build-up of adrenaline that he felt from running after a "bad guy".

And then he just had to smirk. Sal Black was running straight for a hallway that lead directly to a balcony. Once he went down that hallway he would either have to go out onto the balcony, or turn around. John hadn't seen him for very long, but he was pretty sure that he didn't have a gun with him. John had his 9MM with him.

It took only a few seconds after entering that hallway for Sal Black to realize that it was, in fact, a dead end. He stopped short before running onward. John stopped at the beginning of the hallway for a split second before running forward again. He kept expecting Sal Black to turn around and face John, but he just kept going. On through the hallway, to the doors of the balcony, though the doors of the balcony, and then to the far end of the balcony. John stopped at the doors, knowing that it was safer there. He looked around. Despite the fact that it was early afternoon, the sky was dark. It was filled with clouds and it was raining, heavily enough to be a disturbance, but not enough to hurt.

"You're trapped. You have nowhere to go. I have back-up coming. You're not getting out of here, Sal Black." John said, having to speak up against the sound of the wind and rain. Sal Black turned around and looked at John, his hair making shadows on his face. John, for some strange reason, was reminded of those horrible things that he hated dearly called clowns.

Because Sal Black just looking at him like that was creeping him out, John decided to clap his hands together once and try to talk.

"So, Sal Black, or, can I just call you Sal? Black actually sounds better, though." Sal Black said nothing. "Black it is then. You know, I'm really trying to decide what exactly we're going to do to you. Normally we would just send you to the most advanced place that hates you, or at least a place with a really good justice system, and let them handle you. But this time, you killed one of our own. We might just send you back to earth and give you the Death Sentence. Or we could just drop you off in space." Still no reaction. John was trying his very best to stay calm. He was angry, and anger could lead to stupidity, which could, quite possibly, lead to death. Death was not good.

John looked back for a split second to see if the back-up had arrived. It was sheer luck that made him turn around right before Sal Black reached him, knife in hand.

John lifted one arm and hit Black's, pushing back both and making him drop the knife, which was already slick from the rain. Black swiped his leg around and hit John's, causing him to lose his balance momentarily. He hit the glass of the doors and steadied himself. Through the window glass, John saw Black coming at him, his hand reaching quickly for the fallen knife in quick, efficient motions. Just as Black lunged neatly, John ducked. But Black had foreseen this. He used his ankle to hit John's left foot hard, making John lose his balance again. Black hit the right side of John's head with the back of the knife. He then used his leg to hit John's upper stomach in a roundhouse kick. John fell to the ground and saw blood from his head wound fall to the ground and mix with the water.

John heard rather than saw Black swing two knives at him. The whooshing sound of the wind alerted him to it. John rolled out of the way just a half a second before the knives hit down. John looked up at Black, panting from the lack of air because of the hard kick to his stomach. John glared deeply when he saw Black's evil, almost playful smile. He was just playing with him. He probably could have killed him a while ago.

It was then that John remembered the gun at his left side. John faked extreme pain as he got up in strange, jagged movement. Black's smile grew even bigger. The blonde stepped forward and bent down, obviously unafraid.

"You know, I thought you would be a bit harder to kill than this. I was actually looking forward to a more challenging opponent. Oh well, there are a lot of disappointments in this life." Black's voice was dark and deep, kind of raspy sounding. John surmised that it might have sounded nice had it been on someone else.

That was when John swung upward and hit Black full in the face with the bottom of the gun. Black fell back but caught himself neatly and jumped back up, using his hands to lift his feet and jump back up. John raised the gun to shoot, all his attention focused on Black. This was why he didn't see the small pole come loose from a higher level wall and fall down. It hit John on the back of his right leg, making him stumble into the railing of the balcony. Black used this momentary absence of attention to his advantage. He ran forward, fully intending to stab John.

Rain, anger, and smugness can do a lot to a person's common sense. If that pole fell and hit John's right leg and then rolled just slightly forward after John stumbled back, and if Black was standing in front of John, back facing the doors, front facing John and the pole, wouldn't Black, while running forward, also hit the pole? Yes, it's common sense. Black, however, was not using common sense, or any sense, for once in his life. He was all for being very happy and smug that he was better than one of the new leaders who lived in the Great Ancient's own city. This blinded him to the fact that he was still subject to the natural forces of gravity. If your foot hits an object and gets caught under it, and the rest of your body continues to move forward, the rest of your body will fall forward with no support in the front. Basically, he fell forward. Right on to John.

John had not been expecting this, despite the afore-explained common sense. He was caught completely by surprise and his upper body, which Black hit with both of this flailing arms, was forced back, and over the railings.

As Sal Black fall to the ground _inside _of the railings, John fell towards the ground _outside _of the railings.

**TBC!**

**A/N-SOO? Was it good? I think the book's almost over, but not quite. Great leave-off place, eh? Please, don't hurt me! Anyway, please review because I feel discouraged when I don't get a review. Just one, it'll only take a few moments of your time. Thank-you. **


	12. When You Mix DeadEnds and Normal Ends

**A/N- WOW! My last chapter! I really hope it's not rushed. I tried my best to make the last chapter good. Hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer- Nothing that you recognize belongs to me. I can honestly say that Sal Black and Kerina belong to me. :)**

Ronon and Teyla had been sitting in the Mess Hall eating a much-needed late lunch when the call came in. Ronon jumped up from the table, knocking over a chair in the process, and ran out, Teyla right behind him.

They met up with Lorne and his marines only a few corridors away from where John said he was. They shared a simple nod before moving on.

The group reached the corridor that led to the balcony right as Sal Black tripped onto John.

They watched in what seemed like slow motion as John tipped backwards and fell off of the balcony. It was a scary thing to watch, knowing there was nothing they could do.

Sal Black immediately jumped up from his new position on the floor and turned around. He looked at them for a moment before running up to the right side of the balcony and jumping off. Lorne and his team looked slacked-jawed. Then they remembered that there was another smaller balcony underneath that side of the larger balcony.

Lorne nodded at Ronan and then he and his team ran to a transporter which, thankfully, was only two corridors away from them and would lead to one of the two possible places Sal Black could go from where he would exit the lower balcony. The major called for reinforcements to go the other directions.

Most of this was basically lost on Ronon, and partially lost on Teyla, both of whom had started running for where John had fallen off as soon as he had fallen.

Ronon slipped twice on the water, but he got up blindly. What were the odds that Sheppard had been able to hang on? And if he had been able to get a hold, how long exactly could he keep it?

It's amazing how long only a few seconds can seem. It's like in a major accident, right as, say, your car hits another. There's this one second where you see the other car, your family or whoever else is in your car, the street, headlights, but you also see your whole life pass before your eyes, or maybe just one moment that you loved, or just the faces of loved ones. But it goes through your mind in slow motion. That one second is as long as hours somewhere else.

Those few seconds, when Ronon and Teyla were running towards John, or earlier on when, over the video feed, they saw Rodney lurch forward and then fall, or when the Jumper was whooshing out of the water, were like that. It's a strange phenomenon that can never be proved, and yet everyone knows that it actually does happen, even if never to you.

Ronon reached the edge just a half-a-second before Teyla did. Ronon sighed deeply, turning his head briefly to collect himself. Though John had not been able to get a hold on the rails or other protrusions on the balcony, he had been able to hold on to something a couple of feet lower down with his left leg standing on a small piece of…something that was jutting out from the wall.

"Sheppard, are you okay?" Ronon yelled down, trying to make his voice heard over the whistle of the wind. John looked up, a look of relief passing over his face. He did some sort of a half nod half shake. Ronon took this to mean that he was alive but that he had been better.

"John, are you hurt?" Teyla yelled down. John used his head to point at his right leg and then he nodded.

"He has hurt his leg. I will call for a Jumper to go and get him." Teyla said, turning back to Ronon. Ronon nodded, his eyes still on John's form. Ronon itched to climb down and see if John was actually okay. But that would be a fruitless journey considering the fact that if he was actually hurt, there was very, very little Ronon could do. He hated times like this. Times when all he could do was sit around and wait for other people because he would literally be no help. They were aggravating and annoying. And a few other things as well.

After several long moments, which were in fact not quite so long, Teyla was practically having to hold Ronon down. He kept wanting to pitch over the railing and help Sheppard. Even Teyla, in all her diplomatic glory, could not persuade him not to. She had to resort to her fighting skills. They were proving quite ineffective.

Teyla saw it out of the corner of her eye while she was trying to pull Ronon back and simultaneously yelling at him. A little flying dot coming towards them from the main tower. She smiled slightly, knowing it would all be over soon enough.

"Ronon, there is the Jumper. It will be here in a moment." She spoke loudly, to be heard above the wind, but in a comforting way. Ronon looked over at it, sighed slightly, and nodded.

"John," Teyla called down, "The Jumper will be here soon." John nodded up at her, his face looking directly at the wall. Teyla nodded to herself and sighed.

**oOo**

John could see the Jumper closing in. Normally, or as normally as he was stuck in such a position, he would be ecstatic for the rescue. But his fingers wouldn't stop slipping and his leg hurt like crazy.

He kept trying to look up at Ronon and Teyla, but the rain would hit his eyes making it quite hard to see. He could tell, though, that Teyla had been trying to stop Ronon from climbing down before she saw the Jumper.

John sneezed. Wonderful. He was tired, cold, wet, slightly angry, his leg hurt like crazy, and now he had a cold. This was really just awesome. Really. No sarcasm intended.

He sneezed again. About a million more angry and annoyed thoughts ran through his brain. Then he saw the Jumper. He could _feel _his body relax at the thought of a rescue and a warm bed and some of those good drugs that would make him fall asleep for a long time. That would be nice. A long, long nap. Long nap…

John's head hit the hard metal of the building in front of him jerking him out of the sleepiness that had suddenly overcome him. He blinked his eyes open and closed a few times, trying to block out just how tired he was. It would all be over soon.

John looked over at his hands, the veins and bones standing out clearly against his skin. Man, how in the universe had he held on this long? And his leg just wouldn't stop hurting. He knew he had only sprained his ankle, but it still hurt really bad to be holding it in this position for even only a few moments.

And then here came the Jumper! Ah, like a prince on a horse, or something like that. He had never really watched any of those fairy tales or love stories. And…_What am I thinking_?

"Sir? We're coming in with the Jumper. We're just going to open the door and slide it just slightly under you. You'll just have to jump down on it and we'll bring you in." A voice said in his ear.

"Alright then." John said back through clinched teeth.

The Jumper closed in on John's position quite a few feet lower than they needed to be. As they lowered the Jumper down, John's eyes looked up at his hands. His left one was slipping. He tried to tighten his grip, but only caused his hand to loose grip completely. As his left hand fell to his side, John tried with all of his leftover might to keep his right hand holding on.

John grunted as he tried to lift his left hand back to where it had been holding on. The problem was that the metal…thing he had been holding onto was incredibly wet and his right hand was slipping.

John had a split second to realize that there was no way he was going to be able to hold on before his right hand slipped and his left leg gave under the sudden weight added to his leg on a too-small surface.

**oOo**

"John!" Teyla screamed as she saw John fell backwards. Ronon just looked on, obviously in a state of shock.

It was in that moment the Jumper jerked forward in a movement that seemed to be accidental. John hit the top of the Jumper. His face was a picture of agony and he almost doubled over before seeming to remember that he was on a very precariously not flat surface.

"Major Dailey, Colonel Sheppard has just landed on top of the Jumper." Teyla said, more just because she felt she needed to do something than because she thought the Major and his team didn't know that the loud tha-plunk they heard was John hitting the top of the Jumper.

"We know, ma'am. We're going to bring the jumper up slowly and land on the balcony." He replied.

Teyla nodded to herself. It was a very nice thing that this was a good sized balcony large enough for a Jumper to fit in. It would have been very hard to land a Jumper in most of the other balconies.

Teyla and Ronon watched in apprehension as the Jumper slowly, painstakingly so, made its way up to the balcony, Sheppard holding on for dear life on top of it.

Teyla had a brief moment to appreciate just how bizarre this picture was. John Sheppard, lying on top of a Jumper as it flew slowly up to land on the balcony in the pouring rain, _after _John was pushed of the same balcony by a mass-murdering hit man who went by the name of Sal Black, who kidnapped Rodney a few days ago and was now on the run from a bunch of marines. It was kind of like all of those strange action movies from Earth that John insisted on showing her. She frowned slightly. She still did not understand those movies…

She shook her head, chasing those strange thoughts away. She opted instead to think of a way to get John down from the top of the Jumper without causing any more damage to his leg.

She watched as the Jumper slowly flew over the balcony and then attempted to land without jolting too much. Teyla was painfully aware that Major Dailey was not a good driver at all. The good drivers had been off chasing Sal Black when the call had come up. He was the closest to the Jumper bay, so he was picked.

Teyla winced as the Jumper jolted painfully when it landed. The door opened and the rest of the rescue team walked out. Teyla walked forward to talk to them about a way to get John down.

"Ow!" John yelled out Teyla turned to the Jumper, expecting to see John up there. Instead, she saw John lying on the ground _next _to the Jumper with Ronon leaning over him and almost laughing. Teyla looked from the top of the Jumper to John several times before shaking her head.

"John," She said in a dangerous mother-like voice, "Did you just jump from up there." John looked at her. "John, you could have hurt your leg." John just smiled at her.

Teyla turned away as the medics went to help John onto a gurney.

"Hey, it's just a sprained ankle. It's not that bad. Come on; tell her it's not that bad…" John's voice faded as they walked him away. Teyla shook her head again.

**oOo**

Rodney awoke from an after-check-up nap, the check-up was actually quite tiring, to find John in the bed next to him, playing a game on a DS.

"John?" Rodney whispered in confusion, his eyebrows wrinkled together. "John?" He said again, louder this time. John looked over, saw that he was awake, and lifted an eyebrow.

"What are you doing here?" Rodney rasped out, his voice still a bit sore. John sighed.

"Well, uh, I found Sal Black, chased him, he tried to kill me, then he pushed me off the balcony—did I mention we were on a balcony? Then, the Jumper had to come get me, I fell of the thing that I was holding on to, the Jumper caught me, and then it landed. Oh, did I mention I sprained my leg? And now neither Carson nor Jennifer will let me up to go help with the search." Rodney blinked at him. Then he blinked again, looked around, and then blinked again.

"uh…What?"

John sighed.

**oOo**

"Sir, all clear here." A marine yelled back to the leader of this group—Lorne—before nodding to his companion.

"All right, but keep a close watch, he could still be here." Lorne yelled back. The two marines walked to the front of the corridor and looked around before moving on to a small room off to the side.

Sal Black sighed in relief as he ducked back behind the wall. He had been on the run for the past several moments, escaping capture more times than he would like to remember.

Sal Black looked back towards where the Marines had gone, sure that someone had been looking in his direction. He glared in that direction, but saw no one. Black walked forward slightly, still crouching, but still neither saw nor heard anyone. He then sank back into the shadows and thought about what had happened earlier.

It was so stupid of him to try to sneak up on that John Sheppard. Of course the man wasn't stupid. He had just looked so deep in thought, and Black couldn't help himself. It was driving him crazy that there had been no more strays since that scientist.

He smiled sinisterly to himself. Well, now Sheppard was dead. That was that.

**oOo**

The only sounds they heard were those made by marines calling in their reports, by their footsteps on the hard ground, by the clicking up their guns occasionally, and the heavy sound of the rain still falling hard against metal and water.

All of her focus was on finding Sal Black. She was listening to the tell-tale sounds of feet edging away from them, or the quiet breathing of someone other than Ronon. So far there had been nothing but the wind.

A light touch to her sleeve turned her around in a whip-lash movement, her gun raised, safety-off. It was only Ronon. He stepped back and let her breathe before motioning that they needed to talk. He pointed in the direction of a corridor. Teyla could see, quite clearly, that Lorne and two of his marines were there. Teyla nodded.

They walked over silently, trained to make no sound. Teyla nodded at Lorne, and he nodded back.

"Two of my people," He nodded towards the other two marines, "Say they got a fix on Black's location. They saw him briefly. They would have pursued, but they say he might have had a gun. They were ordered to report back if they saw more than just the knife. We don't know what this guy can do. He might be like one of you two." Lorne reported, looking pointedly at Ronon and Teyla.

"I have a plan." Ronon said simply. Teyla looked over at him, surprised, as did Lorne and, discretely, the two marines. Ronon shrugged.

"A plan?" Teyla asked, her eyes sweeping over the dark corridor around them.

"To catch Black." Ronon explained without really explaining.

"Ah." Teyla replied. "What is it then?" Ronon smiled at her mischievously before looking almost nervous and then decided.

"We'll have to make sure _he _is where we think he is, first. And then…"

Teyla could honestly say that she had never, before Ronon, known anyone who could explain a good plan in such a short time.

**oOo**

It was strangely dark to Sal Black after all of the lights that had been shown around him. He couldn't see anyone in the vicinity, nor could he hear any footsteps or voices. He couldn't decide whether this was a good thing or not.

He slowly stood up, planning on choosing a direction and walking, keeping to the shadows of course.

Then he saw light on the ground, most likely from their P-90 guns. There was only one light, though. Only one person? That wasn't smart of them. Perhaps the other had just turned the other way.

He walked forward slowly, staying in the shadows. He saw only one person ahead of him, in a large area between three corridors. A female. The one known as Teyla, but no one else.

This was it, his escape time. He would simply kill her, after sneaking up on her of course, and then walk away. It was quite simple.

He began to sneak forward, but stopped short. He had seen her fighting before, watched in the gym to see their fighting styles and skills. She was one of the best. If she saw him coming before he could stab her she could fight quite well. She had a gun. He had a gun as well, but Karina had damaged it during their little fight, and all he had after that was a knife.

He considered it for a moment. Then he furrowed his almost-blonde eye brows. This was too easy. Why, Oh Great Ancestors, would they let her come out alone? That would be a very bad and incredibly stupid idea. He began to walk away slowly, deciding another way would be better.

"This is Teyla." Teyla said into her radio. Teyla nodded once, twice, thrice. He couldn't hear what was said on the other side of the radio, though, because he was too far away.

"Ronon, I do not see him in this area. I have thoroughly checked it. I believe that the marines were correct when they said they saw him on the other side of this section. I will just look around in this central area before carrying on…Yes, I will join you shortly. Teyla out." Teyla finished, her voice in a quiet whisper.

Sal Black smiled. Oh no, this was far too easy. He couldn't just pass off this opportunity though, could he?

He crept forward slowly, silent and invisible. Teyla turned to where her back was facing him and shone her light down a corridor.

Black unsheathed his knife and walked out from the shadows towards the apparently unsuspecting woman.

Just as he reached her back and prepared to kill her she spun around and pointed her gun directly at him. But he had been prepared for something like this. He put himself in a ball position and rolled out from in front of her. He quickly ran into the shadows of the corridor she had previously been facing. He looked back once to see her signaling to the one known as Ronon and several other marines.

He smirked. As though he hadn't seen that coming.

He could hear them following him, while they yelled at each other to go in certain directions. They thought they could cut him off. It wouldn't work.

He continued to run, keeping to the shadows and staying silent so that he didn't make an easy target.

His eyes darted back and forth as he neared the end of the corridor. There was only a balcony at the end, and no way out.

_No! No! NO! How many of these corridors did they have in the Great City? _

His thoughts were running rampant through his brain. He tried to calm down, even as he continued to run forward with several people behind him. On the last balcony there had been a smaller one below. Perhaps there would be something like that here.

He opened the doors with a single thought and ran out onto the small balcony. He ran to one of the edges but saw nothing below. He looked up as in his peripheral vision he saw others coming towards him. There was no balcony above either.

He walked directly to the middle edge and couldn't help but smirk as Teyla and Ronon ran out.

"Well, that really was an ingenious plan, I'll give you that. Unless of course leading me out here to a dead end was an accident. If that is the case I must say that you are some of the luckiest people alive. Unlike that Sheppard person, of course." He smirked again, his blonde already soaked from the downpour of water.

"Col. Sheppard is still alive." Teyla yelled back as the two advanced, the marines behind them. Sal Black's smirk lifted slightly. But then it was back.

"You really are incredibly lucky, aren't you?" He asked, expecting no answer. "Well, it looks like my time is just up, eh? It's been fun." And with that he turned around and dove off of the balcony, soaring to the waters below.

**oOo**

Teyla and Ronon ran forward as soon as Sal Black jumped over the side. They two looked over the side but saw nothing but the dark ocean below them. They looked at each other before turning to the marines and shaking their heads. Lorne nodded and then called it in. The two turned back to each other.

"He just…jumped." Teyla said, a bit of amazement showing in her voice.

"He was crazy and decided there was nothing really to loose. I say good riddance." Ronon said, his voice gruff and quiet over the wind. Teyla nodded, her eyes still on where she thought Sal Black might have fallen.

**oOo**

John, with the help from some crutches, walked out towards Rodney who had convinced the doctors to let him out on a balcony with a wheel chair. He was hooked up to an IV still, but was looking pretty content just staring off into space.

John walked over and saw down in one of the chairs they had placed out there. It was early morning, the morning after Black jumped off the balcony. It was a beautiful morning, not too hot, not too cold, but just right—a perfect ending to a very long and tiresome adventure. If that's what you could call it.

"Hey, Rodney. Though I'd find you out here." John said, looking over at the scientist.

Rodney looked over at him. "You asked the doctor, didn't you?"

John nodded.

"Yeah, thought so."

"Well, it's all over now." John said, seeing Rodney's tired looking face.

Rodney turned and looked at John, giving him the 'you're-an-idiot' look. This was a look that John was quite familiar with.

"Yes, captain obvious, it is over now. For now. As in, in a few days there will be some other…something wrong…or something." Rodney finished, somewhat awkwardly.

"Well, yeah. But that's the Pegasus Galaxy for you. Nothing you can really do about it." John replied. Rodney just shook his head. And then he sighed.

"Well, I hope that whatever it is that's going to go wrong will _at least _wait until I've gotten a bit better."

"Doesn't it always?"

"Yeah, it's funny how that happens. Seems like every time we get hurt, the next bad thing waits until we're better…"

John furrowed his brow. "Strange."

"Isn't it though?" Rodney looked over at him.

They sat in companionable silence for several moments, just breathing in the nice clear smell of the ocean and soaking in the beams of the sun. It was a peaceful, beautiful moment. One that could only happen to people who had just survived something along the lines of almost being blown up, almost drowning, almost dying several times, almost falling to one's death, and the very large needles of slightly angry or annoyed doctors. It was one of those moments that needed no words and could never be described to someone who had never had such a moment.

And then it was broken.

"I bet you it'll be the wraith next." Rodney said.

"It's possible, although I'm leaning more towards it being either some strange ancient artifact on some random planet, or one of your scientists blowing something up."

Rodney nodded for a moment before he realized that that was an insult to him.

"Hey! It'll probably be one of your lumbering baboons touching something they shouldn't have."

"Lumbering baboons? Seriously? Well then it might end up being…"

And thus ended the lovely moment and started up a conversation or some form of an argument that would last until those doctors with the large needles came along. It was nice while it lasted though. That bit of calm after a very long, hard storm. It never stopped being an important post-anything to anyone who had a lot of storms. Eventually those people with the storms, such as John and Rodney, just learn that time is fleeting and that these moments are best for a short time. After which it is a good time to have a good laugh.

**oOo**

Water spilled out into the small, metal room, making puddles on the ground. Small lights blinked along the walls and on consoles. He lifted both hands to his hair and squeezed out some more water. His hands then fell to his side as he looked around.

He was in a small, ship-like thing. There were mainly two rooms, shaped like circles slightly overlapping each other. The room he was in had several consoles and such on one wall, and a comfortable looking bench on the other. There were two space-suits on either side of the door he had entered from, as well.

He walked forward and into the other room. There were two chairs in front of a long navigational console. The rest of the room was basically filled with different consoles that did different things. He walked to one of them. It appeared to be some sort of a weapons system. He looked over at another one. Auxiliary systems.

There was something that looked like what those Earthlings called a refrigerator next to the doorway. He opened it. Inside there were old emergency rations that would most likely kill him if he even tried to eat them. But there was also a small filtering system that, when turned on, would filter the salt water. He turned it on.

He went over and sat in the pilot's seat and thought of what had just happened.

After hitting the water at such a high speed, he blacked out. The next thing he knew he was next to something that looked like a small ship. He was being held in what appeared to be a protrusion from the ship completely made of glass with only one opening. There was oxygen and he was not dead.

A small screen was on the side of the ship with words in the language of the Great Ancients running across it. He knew how to read the language, and thus read it.

It gave him instructions on how to open his pod, for that it was it called it, and swim out to the back of the ship, for that is what it was. There he would press several small buttons and then think the doors open. He would then enter another small and confining room, this one made of metal. The doors would close and the water would be drained out of the room. He could then open the next door and enter the main ship. More instructions would be waiting inside.

That is what he had done.

He smirked to himself as he read the next instructions. He turned on the ship, checked all main systems and looked at the back-up systems briefly. All that was left to do before he could swish the small ship out of the water and then out of this world was press a button.

He let his finger hover above the button for a moment. He allowed himself a small, sinister smile. Then he, Sal Black, pressed the button.

**oOo**

**A/N- WOW! Awesome leave off place, huh? I really hope you guys liked the story. I'm particularly fond of the ending, and the middle, and all the other stuff too. The ending was pretty awesome, huh? **

**Oh, and Sal Black is dedicated to my older brother who is soon to go off to college and who helped me come up with him! And thanks mom for beta-ing! **

**Well, review please to let me know what you think of the story and stuff. Good bye story!**


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